The LinkedIn co-founder and billionaire tech investor Reid Hoffman has again called for faster adoption of AI for "the elevation of humanity."
"Every month, every year, every week that there's earlier access causes human goodness," Hoffman said in an interview with Time, pointing to AI's benefits tackling problems such as climate change and pandemics, and widening access to education.
He also argued that ChatGPT has been an "unadorned positive."
Hoffman said a "blitzscaling" approach should be applied with AI: "The truth of the matter is that in a globally internet mobile-connected world, speed-to-scale is who wins."
Blitzscaling, also the title of a book written by Hoffman, is a business strategy used by some start-ups that prioritizes super-fast growth above all other considerations. It's epitomized by the rise of Silicon Valley companies such as Amazon, Uber and Airbnb.
When challenged about the frequent errors and flaws that arise with AI models, termed "hallucinations" by developers, Hoffman said the problem was "solvable" and would soon cease to be an issue.
"I would bet you any sum of money you can get the hallucinations right down into the line of human-expert rate within months."
Hoffman has invested in dozens of AI companies through his venture capital firm, Greylock Partners, and was an early investor in OpenAI.
He was not among the 1,000-plus business leaders, including Steve Wozniak and Elon Musk, who signed a letter urging a slowdown in development of new AI models in March. Hoffman instead called the idea of pressing pause on AI a "mistaken effort" and told The New York Times the signees' concerns were "overblown."
On the issue of how to instill AI with universal values within AI, Hoffman admitted that technology isn't neutral, but said developers could be make them as "humanity-positive" as possible in partnership with customers.
"I think all tech companies and AI companies have one of the highest necessities of articulating what values they're building their technology to, what values they should be held accountable to, how they're working to hold themselves accountable, and who they're engaging to help them," he told Time.
Hoffman did not immediately reply to a request for comment from Insider, made outside normal working hours.
