Shanghai, March 23 (chinanews.com) – “Machines don’t have souls,” said Zack Kass, OpenAI’s former global head of commercialization, in Shanghai on March 23.
The 2024 Global Developers Vanguard Conference opened in Shanghai that day. As an invited guest, Zack Kass gave a speech and, afterward, took questions from the audience. One question was, “What do you think of using AI technology to ‘resurrect’ deceased loved ones?” The aforementioned quote was his answer.
He said that he, too, had lost loved ones and missed them dearly, and wished to spend more time with them. However, the reality is that machines don’t have souls, and he said that as humans, there is something special about us.
In his view, while a short conversation with a deceased loved one might bring comfort in the short term, he ultimately believes it creates a strange kind of existence. “I don’t think that’s the world we want to live in.”
He believes there needs to be a clear demarcation between humans and machines, and he believes we need to draw that line very clearly. His biggest concern is that people will use machines to replace themselves in society.
“I don’t want to live in a future where I would rather interact with a bot than a human being. I don’t think that’s the future we want to live in,” he said. (End)
(Original title: “OpenAI's ex-global commercialization head Zack Kass on AI ‘resurrecting’ the dead: Machines don’t have souls”)
