Generative artificial intelligence’s (AI) pace of innovation and scale of deployment, combined with its novel potential and risks, is an urgent call to take meaningful action.
The time to act is now: By most accounts, we have only two to three years before the models will become too sophisticated and the technology too embedded to track, manage, audit, or inspect. At this moment, issues are still emergent, and society has an opportunity to shape its future.
Rarely has a transformative technology with such high stakes, societal implications presented itself anew.
Philanthropy—alongside civil society, policymakers, and industry—has a clear opportunity to help bend the course of generative AI toward its large-scale, potential benefits like accelerating drug discovery, addressing the climate crisis, and augmenting human capacity. And as leaders, we have an imperative to steer generative AI away from both current and extreme harms, which include bias and discrimination in automated decisions, sophisticated mis- and disinformation, the elimination of occupations and industries, and bioweapons.
To do so, we must look at the digital technology system as a whole and everyone who is affected, rather than in stages or piecemeal. We must focus on a technological future that will serve society for years to come.
Read our position on generative AI and 3 guiding principles for our vision:
- Inclusive participation and connection
- Augmented human capability
- Regulation and innovation
