OpenAI appoints former NSA Chief, raising surveillance concerns
“You’ve been warned”
The company that created ChatGPT, OpenAI, revealed that it has added retired US Army General and former NSA Director Paul Nakasone to its board. Nakasone oversaw the military’s Cyber Command section, which is focused on cybersecurity.
“General Nakasone’s unparalleled experience in areas like cybersecurity,” OpenAI board chair Bret Taylor said in a statement, “will help guide OpenAI in achieving its mission of ensuring artificial general intelligence benefits all of humanity.”
As reported here, Nakasone’s new position at the AI company, where he will also be sitting on OpenAI’s Safety and Security Committee, has not been well received by many. Long linked to the surveillance of US citizens, AI-integrated technologies are already reviving and intensifying worries about surveillance. Given this, it should come as no surprise that one of the strongest opponents of the OpenAI appointment is Edward Snowden, a former NSA employee and well-known whistleblower.
“They’ve gone full mask off: do not ever trust OpenAI or its products,” Snowden — emphasis his — wrote in a Friday post to X-formerly-Twitter, adding that “there’s only one reason for appointing” an NSA director “to your board.”
“This is a willful, calculated betrayal of the rights of every person on earth,” he continued. “You’ve been warned.”
Transparency worries
Snowden was hardly the first well-known cybersecurity expert to express disapproval over the OpenAI announcement.
“I do think that the biggest application of AI is going to be mass population surveillance,” Johns Hopkins University cryptography professor Matthew Green tweeted, “so bringing the former head of the NSA into OpenAI has some solid logic behind it.”
Nakasone’s arrival follows a series of high-profile departures from OpenAI, including prominent safety researchers, as well as the complete dissolution of the company’s now-defunct “Superalignment” safety team. The Safety and Security Committee, OpenAI’s reincarnation of that team, is currently led by CEO Sam Altman, who has faced criticism in recent weeks for using business tactics that included silencing former employees. It is also important to note that OpenAI has frequently come under fire for, once again, not being transparent about the data it uses to train its several AI models.
However, many on Capitol Hill saw Nakasone’s OpenAI guarantee as a security triumph, according to Axios. OpenAI’s “dedication to its mission aligns closely with my own values and experience in public service,” according to a statement released by Nakasone.
“I look forward to contributing to OpenAI’s efforts,” he added, “to ensure artificial general intelligence is safe and beneficial to people around the world.”
The backlash from privacy advocates like Edward Snowden and cybersecurity experts is justifiable. Their warnings about the potential for AI to be weaponized for mass surveillance under Nakasone’s guidance cannot be dismissed lightly.
As AI capabilities continue to advance at a breakneck pace, a steadfast commitment to human rights, civil liberties, and democratic values must guide the development of these technologies.
The future of AI, and all the more so of AGI, risks creating dangerous scenarios not only given the unpredictability of such powerful tools but also the intents and purposes of its users, who could easily exploit them for unlawful purposes. Moreover, the risk of government interference to appropriate such an instrument for unethical ends cannot be ruled out. And recent events raise suspicions.
