Don’t Let AI’s Genie Out of the Bottle: Obama Warns of Deepfake Threat

Governments worldwide are grappling with the challenge of regulating artificial intelligence, causing significant frustration. The EU recently passed the AI Act after extensive discussions, but it has faced backlash from major corporations. Similarly, the AI executive order issued by the Biden administration has been criticized for not adequately addressing equality concerns. Even the AI Safety Summit in the UK, led by PM Rishi Sunak, failed to reach a consensus on the optimal approach to regulating AI without hindering its vast potential. Former US President Barack Obama, drawing on his experience as a lawman, has now offered his perspective on how to tackle this complex issue.

Obama gave an interview to The Verge’s video podcast Decoder, where he delved into the regulatory side of AI and why it’s a tricky beast to tame. Obama also thought that policy makers should be careful not to introduce rules that are “anti-tech” because it puts the spirit back in the bottle and the world loses the chance for something that can change lives.

Barack Obama on artificial intelligence regulation

Obama was asked about the AI executive order and the new terms used in it, such as red teaming, watermarking and AI transparency, as the government was entering new waters. Obama compared the situation to 2015, when social media platforms ushered in an “information revolution” and lives were affected at every turn.

Obama found that one of the biggest takeaways from that space was that it could be incredibly good. But there is a catch. “…We need to be maybe a little more specific about how our democracies interact with what’s primarily coming from the private sector. What rules of the road we set and how we make sure we maximize the good and maybe minimize some of the bad,” he said.

He also added that experts need to be involved because they are the only ones who can help decision makers understand the new technology and the real challenges that exist.

When told he was one of the most profoundly fake people in the world, Obama said, “I realized when I left office that I had probably been photographed and recorded more than any person in history just because I happened to be the first president when the smartphone came out.” He said it created a huge amount of visual data about him, and it’s simply easy to deepfake him.

He believes that the problem of deep counterfeiting can only be solved slowly, with frequent changes in the law. He believes that a blanket rule will not work, and laws need to be created and specified over a period of time as adverse effects continue to emerge. But that doesn’t mean Obama wants to over-regulate AI.

“I don’t think we should try to put the genie back in the bottle and be anti-technology because of all the huge potential. But I think we should put guardrails around some of the foreseeable risks and be flexible enough that [they] don’t destroy innovation but guide and steer this technology in a way that maximizes not just individual company profits, but the public good,” he said.

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