The creator of advanced chatbot ChatGPT has called on US lawmakers to regulate artificial intelligence (AI).

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, testified before a US Senate committee on Tuesday about the possibilities – and pitfalls – of the new technology.

In a matter of months, several AI models have entered the market.

Mr Altman said a new agency should be formed to license AI companies.

ChatGPT and other similar programmes can create incredibly human-like answers to questions – but can also be wildly inaccurate.

Mr Altman, 38, has become a spokesman of sorts for the burgeoning industry. He has not shied away from addressing the ethical questions that AI raises, and has pushed for more regulation.

He said that AI could be as a big as “the printing press” but acknowledged its potential dangers.

He also admitted the impact that AI could have on the economy, including the likelihood that AI technology could replace some jobs, leading to layoffs in certain fields.

“There will be an impact on jobs. We try to be very clear about that,” he said.

However, some senators argued new laws were needed to make it easier for people to sue OpenAI.

Mr Altman told legislators he was worried about the potential impact on democracy, and how AI could be used to send targeted misinformation during elections.

He gave several suggestions for how a new agency in the US could regulate the industry – including giving out and taking away permits for AI companies.

He also said firms like OpenAI should be independently audited.

Republican Senator Josh Hawley said the technology could be revolutionary, but also compared the new tech to the invention of the “atomic bomb”.

Democrat Senator Richard Blumenthal observed that an AI-dominated future “is not necessarily the future that we want”.

“We need to maximize the good over the bad. Congress has a choice now. We had the same choice when we faced social media. We failed to seize that moment,” he warned.

What was clear from the testimony is that there is bi-partisan support for a new body to regulate the industry.

However, the technology is moving so fast that legislators also wondered whether such an agency would be capable of keeping up.

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• ChatGPT boss tells US Congress that regulation of artificial intelligence is ‘crucial’ – EuroNews
  • ChatGPT’s Sam Altman says the benefits of artificial intelligence outweigh the risks, but that AI should be regulated.
  • The head of the artificial intelligence company that developed ChatGPT told the US Congress on Tuesday that while artificial intelligence can be beneficial to humanity, it should be regulated.
  • “We believe that the benefits of the tools we have developed so far, far outweigh the risks,” OpenAI CEO and co-founder Sam Altman said.
  • He listed the technology’s beneficial applications, from medicine to combating the climate crisis. But he said the intervention of the world’s governments was needed to ensure that these tools are developed in a way that protects and respects the rights and freedoms of citizens.
  • “As this technology advances, we understand that people are anxious about how it could change the way we live. We are too,” he said.
  • He proposed the formation of a US or global agency that would license the most powerful AI systems and have the authority to “take that license away and ensure compliance with safety standards”.
  • “We think that regulatory intervention by governments will be critical to mitigating the risks of increasingly powerful models. For example, the US might consider a combination of licensing and testing requirements for the development and launch of models above the threshold of capabilities,” he said.
  • Altman’s San Francisco-based start-up rocketed to global attention in November last year when it released ChatGPT.
  • The free chatbot tool can write essays or a poem, plan a vacation itinerary, or solve a computer code with convincingly human-like responses.
  • His testimony comes amid increasing concerns in the United States and elsewhere that AI will have unexpected effects on society.
  • US lawmakers cited risks such as job losses or the use of content creation tools to generate false information by foreign actors.
  • There is no immediate sign that Congress will craft sweeping new AI rules, such as European lawmakers are doing. But US agencies have promised to crack down on harmful AI products that break existing civil rights and consumer protection laws.
  • Earlier this month, the US government announced that it will invest $140 million to establish seven new artificial intelligence research institutes that will drive responsible innovation and ensure that advances in the technology serve the common good.