He warned about the growing dangers of AI developments
The UK is set to review the artificial intelligence (AI) market to make sure its benefits are available for everyone and that no single firm will dominate.
The investigation will look at the software behind chatbots like ChatGPT.
The industry is facing scrutiny over the pace at which it is developing technology to mimic human behaviour.
AI’s rapid rise to prominence has sparked fears of job losses, privacy and the potential to circulate misinformation.
Sarah Cardell, chief executive of the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), said so-called foundation models such as the software behind ChatGPT had the potential to “transform the way businesses compete as well as drive substantial economic growth”.
However, she said it was crucial that the potential benefits were “readily accessible to UK businesses and consumers while people remain protected from issues like false or misleading information”.
The review comes days after Geoffrey Hinton – widely regarded as the godfather of AI – quit his job.
He warned about the growing dangers of AI developments, which enables technology to create images or text that are barely distinguishable from the work of humans.
Sir Martin Sorrell, founder of the advertising companies WPP and S4, said AI would be an “industrial revolution” and “another major shift in technology, rivalling, maybe even more significant than the iPhone and similar developments”.
He added that the digital advertising industry is already seeing the impact, with firms using AI to “hyper personalise” ads for consumers.
Sir Martin said: “Obviously that raises all sorts of issues around regulation as well.”
He said Microsoft and Google currently dominate the AI space.
Microsoft owns ChatGPT and Google launched a rival chatbot called Bard.
Sir Martin said the CMA had shown its willingness to stop tech firms having too much power.
For example, it blocked Microsoft’s planned takeover of Activision Blizzard, which sparked a furious reaction from the tech giant.
The US Federal Trade Commission had also called for tougher regulation of AI.
Sir Martin said:
“The [UK’s] regulator is saying bigger is bad.”
“But the cost of developing [AI] technologies is so huge and thereby hangs the dilemma… If you restrict it you will restrict progress.”
Some warned that the likes of Bard and ChatGPT could end up taking hundreds of millions of jobs.
Mr Hinton said that some of the dangers of AI chatbots were “quite scary” and they could soon overtake the level of information that a human brain holds.
He added: “Right now, they’re not more intelligent than us, as far as I can tell. But I think they soon may be.”