Curious, confused, or concerned about generative AI?
Listen to the latest episode of The GET with Tom Friedman, Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist for The New York Times, and Sam Palmisano, Chairman of the Center for Global Enterprise, and former Chairman of IBM, for a discussion about what will change in a world where generative AI technology becomes widely accessible and used by individuals and businesses.
Below are some edited snippets of the conversation from this special edition of The GET, A Generative AI Primer for CEOs. For the complete podcast go to The GET at https://www.thecge.net/the-get/. Also available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
On generative AI’s impact
“I call this moment the age of acceleration, amplification, and democratization. Never have more people had access to more tools that amplify their physical or brain power at a steadily accelerating rate and are being democratized at the same time to more and more people. “
— Tom Friedman
“What the browser did for the internet, generative AI is doing for AI. It makes it available to everyone. You don’t have to be a data scientist to take advantage of these technologies. That’s why it’s so transformative.” – Sam Palmisano
Advice to CEOs and government leaders about where to start
“The engineering of [generative AI] is ahead of the scientific understanding of it. That’s the moment we’re at, and the only way we’re going to find out is to dive in. So, whatever business you’re in, you’re a journalist, a manufacturer, or selling hamburgers and french fries, I’d say dive in.” — Tom Friedman
“You need to establish a management system within your company on usage principles because whatever you’re doing as a business, you have to be trusted by society and your customers. You have to build a culture within the organization that is principle-based that long-term builds trust as you use these technologies.” – Sam Palmisano
Governing generative AI use
“This is not like the old way: I government regulate, you business innovate. That was a very binary system. This has to be much more like an ecosystem where you get all stakeholders together, not just the stakeholders, the people who can understand the stakes and define them and bring them under one tent in order to write the regulation. One of the challenges with generative AI is that regulating it won’t be one size fits all.” – Tom Friedman
Government regulation
“I think to rely strictly on governments today to bring the world together, given the nature of the governments and how they are, that’s going to be very, very difficult to do. I really worry that given the nature of some of our leaders today, at least in the public sector, the negatives could outweigh the positives.” – Sam Palmisano
“The old top-down command and control system, it’s just not going to work. The speed that this is coming at because these are powerful tools. This is not the internet; this is not just about reaching somebody. You can start wars with this. You can rob banks with this in a way we’ve never seen before. There’s no time to waste, and therefore, obviously, you want a coherent governing structure working together, and not two parties who spend every morning trying to subvert each other. – Tom Friedman
Back to News and Press