AI Posterboy In Town: the What, Where and Who of Sam Altman's Trip to India A man on a mission, Sam Altman meant business as soon as he touched down at the national capital.
By Paromita Gupta •
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On what was a lazy Sunday for a majority of us, a single Twitter notification left the country in a frenzy. Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI and creator of ChatGPT, tweeted about his upcoming visits to several countries, including India, this week.
excited to visit israel, jordan, qatar, the uae, india, and south korea this week!
— Sam Altman (@sama) June 4, 2023
A man on a mission, Altman meant business as soon as he touched down at the national capital. On Wednesday, he sat down for a conversation with Amitabh Kant, the present G20 Sherpa of India, on generative artificial intelligence and how it can improve the quality of life. The former CEO of Niti Aayog also presented Altman with a copy of his book "Made In India."
Wonderful meeting with @OpenAI brilliant young Founder & CEO @sama Congratulated him on the success of #ChatGPT and discussed the potential of generative artificial intelligence and how emerging economies can leverage #GenerativeAI to improve quality of life of citizens. pic.twitter.com/vfXksk183r
— Amitabh Kant (@amitabhk87) June 7, 2023
Later on, he met with The Economic Times and shared his views on artificial intelligence, public concerns and its future. It is an undeniable fact that India has embraced ChatGPT with open arms and has seen its adoption in several industries and organizations, and the Stanford dropout is very grateful for that.
During a diverse Q&A which took place, on being asked about the risk GPT poses to traditional or existing jobs, he shared, "In two generations, we kind of adapt to any labour market change, and we see new jobs that are usually better. That is going to happen here too. Some jobs are going to go away. But there will be new, better jobs that are difficult to imagine." He further adds that the speed of change will play a part and that the government and socio-economic contract will have to look into it.
Source: IITD
On Thursday, he sat down at the Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology Delhi for an interactive discussion with students and enthusiasts. He was joined by Atty Eleti and Sandhini Agarwal of OpenAI. He answered questions pertaining to regulations on AI, the ecological impact of operating the latest AI technology, and how the present hardware will be able to keep up with the rapidly evolving technology.
"It is the AI developers who are calling the most for AI regulations," he answered to one of the questions. This was Altman's first and probably the only interactive academic interaction during the visit. He also was a part of an exclusive developers' meet brainstorming session on campus. It is speculated that his meeting with Prime Minister Modi took place before the educational event.
In the early hours of 9th June, Altman took to Twitter to post only one interaction of his India tour, with noneother than PM Modi. "great conversation with@narendramodi discussing india's incredible tech ecosystem and how the country can benefit from ai," he tweeted.
great conversation with @narendramodi discussing india's incredible tech ecosystem and how the country can benefit from ai.
— Sam Altman (@sama) June 9, 2023
really enjoyed all my meetings with people in the @PMOIndia. pic.twitter.com/EzxVD0UMDM
Money Control reported that the meeting held great significance for India's efforts to regulate AI through its upcoming Digital Indian Bill. The bill will be replacing the existin Information Technology (IT) Act. "We talked about the opportunities in front for the country, what the country should do, also the need to think about global regulation to make sure we prevent some of the downsides from happening — but it was a great hour," the OpenAI CEO said during Digital India Dailogues at IIITD.
He was also rumoured to be meeting Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Union Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology.
After spending 48 hours in Delhi as a part of his global tour, Altman flew to his next stop on the list- Seoul, South Korea.
