Artificial intelligence (AI) companies should be “selling solutions” in areas such as cybersecurity rather than “selling fear”, OpenAI executive Sarah Friar told a summit in Dublin on Wednesday as the firm targets future growth.
The company may also find more opportunities in areas such as life sciences, drug development and the microchip industry, she said.
Friar, OpenAI’s chief financial officer, was speaking at the International AI Summit at the RDS in Ballsbridge, Dublin.
The event, organised by the Government as part of Ireland’s presidency of the Council of the European Union, brought together leaders from industry and government across the region to discuss the opportunities and challenges brought by the technology.
The executive told the summit that AI had a role to play in shoring up systems, discovering vulnerabilities in older code and patching them at “machine speed”.
“Selling fear is not a good way to come to the world. We have to sell solutions and solutions that feel transparent, open and honest,” Friar said.
There have been fears that the technology will eliminate many jobs, even in the tech sector.
However, she told The Irish Times the number of software developers had increased globally rather than fallen off.
“If you look at the amount of code that can be developed, it has gone way up,” she said. “So if software has eaten the world, to quote [US businessman] Marc Andreessen, we are now just having that happening at an even faster rate.”
What may change, she said, was how people learned to develop software, and new jobs would be – and were being – created through and because of AI.
The AI company has seen significant growth in Ireland, with more than 2.5 million people here using ChatGPT every week, out of 1.2 billion globally.
OpenAI has yet to turn a profit and has raised more than $180 billion (€161.8 billion) in funding, including $122 billion in the first quarter of the year. Recent reports put overall annualised revenues for the company at $50 billion, around $20 billion below previous reports.
OpenAI began selling ads on its ChatGPT platform this year. It recorded an annualised revenue run rate of $1 billion for the ad business as of the end of August. But Friar said trust in the technology was key.
“You have to have trust with your user and be very clear what are your principles off the bat. We’re very clear that you get the best outcome from the model, not the sponsored outcome,” Friar told The Irish Times.
“I think we are a very interesting ad platform because we’re kind of this beautiful meld of high contextual relevance.”
In a speech at the event, Microsoft president Brad Smith called for stricter safety rules for AI, saying there were more safety rules for ovens and cartons of milk than there were for AI.
“Let’s be devoted to the progress of technology, but let’s be even more devoted to the advance of humanity,” he said.
“Think about your kids. Think about our neighbours and remember this: people are more important than AI.”
He said he was optimistic about what AI could do for Europe, with a new generation of technology that created more important opportunities and responsibilities than before.