It's time to talk about the real AI risks

Unsurprisingly, everyone was talking about AI and the recent rush to deploy large language models. Ahead of the conference, the United Nations put out a statement, encouraging RightsCon attendees to focus on AI oversight and transparency. I was surprised, however, by how different the conversations about the risks of generative AI were at RightsCon from all the warnings from big Silicon Valley voices that I've been reading in the news. Throughout the last few weeks, tech luminaries like OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, ex-Googler Geoff Hinton, top AI researcher Yoshua Bengio, Elon Musk, and many others have been calling for regulation and urgent action to address the "existential risks"--even including extinction--that AI poses to humanity. Certainly, the rapid deployment of large language models without risk assessments, disclosures about training data and processes, or seemingly much attention paid to how the tech could be misused is concerning.