Zico Kolter: OpenAI's Newest Board Member on The Biggest Questions and Concerns in AI Safety

Zico Kolter is a Professor and the Director of the Machine Learning Department at Carnegie Mellon University.  His research spans several topics in AI and machine learning, including work in AI safety and robustness, LLM security, the impact of data on models, implicit models, and more.  He also serves on the Board of OpenAI, as a Chief Expert for Bosch, and as Chief Technical Advisor to Gray Swan, a startup in the AI safety space.

In Today’s Episode with Zico Kolter We Discuss:

1. Model Performance: What are the Bottlenecks:

• Data: To what extent have we leveraged all available data? How can we get more value from the data that we have to improve model performance?

• Compute: Have we reached a stage of diminishing returns where more data does not lead to an increased level of performance?

• Algorithms: What are the biggest problems with current algorithms? How will they change in the next 12 months to improve model performance?

2. Sam Altman, Sequoia and Frontier Models on Data Centres:

• Sam Altman: Does Zico agree with Sam Altman’s statement that “compute will be the currency of the future?” Where is he right? Where is he wrong?

• David Cahn @ Sequoia: Does Zico agree with David’s statement; “we will never train a frontier model on the same data centre twice?”

3. AI Safety: What People Think They Know But Do Not:

• What are people not concerned about today which is a massive concern with AI?

• What are people concerned about which is not a true concern for the future?

• Does Zico share Arvind Narayanan’s concern, “the biggest danger is not that people will believe what they see, it is that they will not believe what they see”?

• Why does Zico believe the analogy of AI to nuclear weapons is wrong and inaccurate?