Mission control

The need to regulate artificial intelligence is becoming urgent and Europe is well out in front on this.

- Peter Griffin

Sam Altman went before the US Congress last week and gave American lawmakers a clear message - regulate artificial intelligence.

"I think if this technology goes wrong, it can go quite wrong," said the co-founder of OpenAI, which created the ChatGPT intelligence chatbot that has taken the world by storm.

Altman may have a hit product on his hands, but he is a contradictory figure in tech. He has turned OpenAI from an open source, non-profit organisation created with the aim of countering the power of Google and other Big Tech players into a for-profit enterprise propped up by a US$10 billion investment from Microsoft.

ChatGPT stands to become one of the biggest cash cows since Google invented its ubiquitous search engine. Even Elon Musk, the billionaire who had a hand in OpenAI's creation before parting ways with Altman, sees a problem with that.

"Let's say you funded an organisation to save the Amazon Rainforest and instead they became a lumber company and chopped down the forest and sold it for money," was how he put it last week.