In June, Sarah Yager took an unusual role at OpenAI, becoming the company\u2019s first Human Rights and Responsible Deployment Lead. She\u2019s focused on military applications, given her 30 years of experience in this area and OpenAI\u2019s partnership with the Department of War (DoW).<\/p>\n
\n
Yager spoke about her role on stage Tuesday at the ScaleUp:AI conference in New York City, where she mentioned her concerns with military institutions adopting AI, particularly in armed conflict.<\/p>\n
\u201cEveryone is very worried and rightly so,\u201d Yager said. \u201cThis keeps me up at night: \u2018What is the military going to do with AI when it comes to targeting? And what about autonomous weapons? And where is all of this going?’\u201d<\/p>\n
Militaries throughout the world are rapidly incorporating AI into their operations as they develop new weapons and autonomous systems like drones and robots. <\/p>\n
Yager now has a chance to grapple with the difficult questions this poses from inside one of the most powerful AI companies in the world. \u201cI have always wanted to go into places and persuade people where human rights was not necessarily the dominant idea,\u201d Yager said. \u201cWith apologies to my OpenAI colleagues, I am now in the belly of the beast, and it\u2019s actually a very comfortable place for me to be because what I love to do is persuade and discuss and debate and hopefully move the needle.\u201d<\/p>\n
OpenAI approached Yager for the job shortly after the company signed a contract with the DoW in late February to deploy advanced AI systems in classified environment, a high-profile deal that followed a public falling out between the DoW and Anthropic. Anthropic wanted to put guardrails around how the military could use its technology, specifically banning mass public surveillance and fully autonomous weapons, which the DoW would not agree to. The DoW then labelled Anthropic a supply chain risk, while OpenAI swooped in and took the contract, claiming it was successful in getting the DoW to agree to similar guardrails.<\/p>\n
The idea of working at OpenAI was not \u201can immediate yes\u201d for Yager, she said, due to suspicions that the company might be hiring her as a \u201cbranding exercise,\u201d as the on-stage interviewer put it, implying she could make the company look responsible\u2014a figurehead without actual influence over the technology. But Yager did her \u201cdue diligence\u201d in talking with employees, particularly \u201cthe younger generation who are very worried about what they are creating and who\u2019s at the wheel,\u201d and felt compelled to join to see if she could make a difference.<\/p>\n
Since joining, she\u2019s had some success influencing the direction of the technology, and also some concerns about where it\u2019s going. The use of AI in military applications has proven tricky, with the U.S. military nearly targeting a Chinese military ship based on an inaccurate, AI-generated intelligence report, CNN reported last month.<\/p>\n
Yager has been able to work directly with researchers and engineers to improve the models, such as making sure they have appropriate responses to basic international agreements, including the laws of war, established in 1949 at the post-World War II Geneva Conventions. She brought in international experts \u201cto literally sit at keyboards and put in prompts for really high stakes engagements,\u201d and had engineers tweak the models based on the response. \u201cThat had never been done before, so that was extremely gratifying,\u201d said Yager.<\/p>\n
She thinks AI companies are trying to \u201creinvent the wheel\u201d on questions such as defining humanity and morality. \u201cSocieties have already figured out a lot of those things, and it\u2019s called human rights. That should be the baseline,\u201d she said, referring to the Geneva Conventions agreements. \u201cI do not want an AI company telling me what is good. If we allow the industry to determine what is good, then it\u2019s a free for all.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yager also implied she was a bit put off by the debate within Silicon Valley around whether AIs, and particularly the new agent technologies, should have rights. This is something OpenAI asked her during her interview process. She said \u201cno\u201d at the time, and reiterated she was focused on human<\/em> rights, but she has since thought more about the question. Now, she feels more open to the \u201cextremely important\u201d conversations about \u201cwhere agents fit into the legal structures, the labor structures, the tax structures,\u201d but notes that these questions are not a matter of rights.<\/p>\n\u201cThis is not at all comparable to human rights, and I would really love if we could just get back to the human of human rights,\u201d she said. The crowd\u2014mostly suited businessmen\u2014began to clap. \u201cBig round of applause for that,\u201d said the on-stage interviewer.<\/p>\n
Another one of her concerns is the relatively insular demographic groups building AI. For example, last week President Trump gathered dozens of tech industry leaders in Washington to discuss AI safety. All the signatories of the voluntary safety accord were men, and as photos of the broader group present at a lunch event reveal, all of the attendees were men (save for AMD CEO Lisa Su).<\/p>\n
\u201cMen are awesome, but it was a very male photograph of who is going to be making the choices about AI,\u201d Yager said. \u201cOne problem with that is that AI is fundamentally shifting the power balance between people all over the world, you did not see affected communities up there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Yager noted the government is rapidly adopting AI. she\u2019s helping oversight bodies, such as the Government Accountability Office and the Inspector General, build tools to keep tabs on what it\u2019s doing. That accountability mechanism \u201cfeels important for democracy,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
#OpenAIs #Human #Rights #Lead #military #night<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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