Steve Wozniak is no stranger to being on the cutting edge of technology, but the Apple cofounder says artificial intelligence is a fast-evolving development that needs to be slowed down.
Wozniak, who founded the Mac maker in 1976 with fellow college dropout Steve Jobs, has signed an open letter calling for a pause in the development of large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, a letter that also counts Tesla CEO Elon Musk among its signatories.
However, the electronics engineer denied that he was afraid of large language models. Wozniak said he didn’t “lead his life in fear” and isn’t worried about A.I. itself, but said he is concerned about the impact of this technology falling into the wrong hands.
He added that all powerful technology comes with good and bad aspects, and said the tech community needs to be “responsible” with their developments and help the public prepare for “what’s coming.”
“We should take steps to keep it from being too horrible and bad,” Wozniak told CNN. “For example, look at how many bad people out there just hit us with spam and try to get our passwords and take over our accounts and mess up our lives. Now A.I. is another, more powerful tool, and it’s going to be used by those people for really evil purposes, and I hate to see technology being used that way.”
Wozniak, worth an estimated $100 million, said regulation doesn’t need to get in the way of growing businesses but is merely a guardrail for companies to prove they are taking heed of ethical concerns.
He admitted global regulation would also be impossible, an issue previously highlighted by Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates.
Last month the famed philanthropist told Reuters that a proposed six-month ban on LLM development “won’t solve the challenges” A.I. has presented, adding: “I don’t really understand who they’re saying could stop, and would every country in the world agree to stop, and why to stop.”
This lack of buy-in from around the world is “one of the reasons technology has so many bad sides,” Wozniak admitted.
He added that LLMs could even be deployed to help regulate the sector: “Could A.I. be employed to spot all these tricky little worded spams that are trying to get your passwords and all that, could they spot that? It’s never been used that way, it’s been used by people who want to make a name for themselves or make money.”
He also placed blame on people from the past who allowed technology to advance so far without regulation: “I look back at some of the easier life days with less worries about all this stuff and when things worked more, I often say those that brought us this digital revolution should be executed or worse yet, make them live in it.”
‘I want to take the side of responsibility’
Wozniak told Bloomberg earlier this week he hadn’t signed the open letter because of what he was reading about the technology, but because it was being signed by people he trusted.
He said: “It was: ‘You know what, I’m a human being.’ I’m less influenced by things I can read but more by people and certain people that I trusted. The people I trust were going in this direction and I wanted to be a part of it.”
As well as piling praise on Apple CEO Tim Cook, Wozniak made it clear he believed the technology could bring about “a lot of good.” He added there was a flip side: “What if we had developed the internet with protocols in place that you can always identify anybody and so spam is almost impossible?
“What if we have that chance to sit back and think about A.I. a little before it’s here? We don’t really have that chance but it’s the responsibility that I want to take the side of.”
When he founded Apple alongside Jobs, Wozniak added, he wanted to help people use computers so that they could increase their capabilities so they can “do more and be more in charge of where their life goes.”
“I’m all for change,” Wozniak said. “But I’m against things which can be used dishonestly.”
