Enlarge / OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testifies about AI rules before the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law on May 16, 2023, in Washington, DC. (credit: Getty Images | Win McNamee )

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman testified in the US Senate today about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence technology made by his company and others, and urged lawmakers to impose licensing requirements and other regulations on organizations that make advanced AI systems such as OpenAI’s GPT-4.

“We think that regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigate the risks of increasingly powerful models,” Altman said. “For example, the US government might consider a combination of licensing and testing requirements for development and release of AI models above a threshold of capabilities.”

While Altman touted AI’s benefits, he said that OpenAI is “quite concerned” about elections being affected by content generated by AI. “Given that we’re going to face an election next year and these models are getting better, I think this is a significant area of concern… I do think some regulation would be quite wise on this topic,” Altman said.