What can nuclear power's past tell us about AI safety?

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Welcome in San Diego. It's Jade Hindman. On this episode of KPBS Midday Edition, what could effective regulation look like for AI? Well, one of the leading scholars on global policy, David Victor, joins us. This is KPBS Midday Edition, connecting our communities through conversation. Recent events in the world of artificial intelligence have left many within and outside of the industry fearful. Fearful of the technology behaving in unexpected, even destructive ways outside of human control. Just yesterday, the Wall Street Journal reported OpenAI, the maker of ChatGPT, says it will not be releasing its latest model due to safety concerns. And with those fears have come growing calls for more rules to reign in the industry. But what might effective regulation actually look like for AI? Here to talk more is a voice we often turn to with these big questions of our time. David Victor is a professor of innovation and public policy at UC San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy. David, welcome back to Midday.

Jade, it's always great to be here with you.

Great to have you here. Listen, before we turn to you about AI, you know, as you know, we always talk to you about a range of topics to better understand policy developments, and that includes environmental policy. We just got done talking about the Trump administration's move to roll back fuel efficiency standards for new cars in the coming years. How big of an impact do you expect that move to have on emissions in this country?

I think in the short term, it's not going to have a huge impact. It takes a long time to develop a new model of a car. The auto industry is always looking down the road. They don't know what's going to happen after the Trump administration. The Trump folks are only in power for another two years. If somebody from that ilk gets elected back into the White House, then maybe it'll last longer. But there's just a huge amount of inertia in this system. And I think everyone knows we need to be pointed in the direction of greater efficiency, greater cleanliness, and so on within reason. So I don't expect a massive impact right now because folks are handicapping how long these rules will actually last.

Interesting. All right. So now back to artificial intelligence. In a recent piece you wrote for the Los Angeles Times, you say the AI industry might want to look to how another industry with safety concerns and how they approach regulation. And that's the nuclear power industry. And you start with taking us back to Three Mile Island. the accident that happened in 1979. How does that moment mirror where AI is today?

Well, there are no perfect mirrors, but one of the things that just strikes me about the AI industry today is that it is similar to the nuclear power industry. in many respects. It offers enormous promise. The nuclear power industry offered the possibility of inexpensive power, huge volumes, relatively clean, on