AI leaders tackle tough questions at Fortune Brainstorm AI London

Hello and welcome to Eye on AI!

A quick introduction from me: I joined Fortune last month as an AI reporter after two years covering all things AI at VentureBeat. I’m thrilled to continue on this fast-paced tech beat and happy to step in for Jeremy Kahn today, who has had his hands full leading the Fortune Brainstorm AI conference in London this week.

I wish I could have been there in person—after all, this was the first time Fortune’s Brainstorm AI conversation has made its way to Europe, after several successful years in San Francisco. But I did catch some of the livestream, and it was chock-full of top leaders from startups, and companies across Europe, as well as investors, policymakers, and academics—all discussing generative AI as a crucial moment that provides the industry with both an opportunity to innovate and a challenge to tackle responsibly.

Here are some of the key themes and issues discussed by AI industry leaders at the conference: 

AI could gobble up a quarter of all electricity in the U.S. by 2030 if it doesn’t break its energy addiction, says Arm Holdings exec: Before artificial intelligence can transform society, the technology will first have to learn how to live within its means, Ami Badani, chief marketing officer at chip design company Arm Holdings, told the Brainstorm AI London audience. Right now generative AI technology has an “insatiable demand” for electricity to power the tens of thousands of compute clusters needed to operate large language models like OpenAI’s GPT-4, Badani said.

Asking Big Tech to police AI is like turning to ‘oil companies to solve climate change’: Managing artificial intelligence’s impact on society isn’t the responsibility of private companies, the founder of a nonprofit AI research lab said Connor Leahy, cofounder of EleutherAI, at a panel called "Innovation vs. Ethics: Striking the Right Balanced in AI Regulation." He argued that the onus of how transformational technologies will impact the public shouldn’t be placed on the tech industry. Instead, it’s elected governments that should regulate the sector adequately to keep people safe.

Expert argues AI won’t lead to mass layoffs for workers anytime soon: The day that artificial intelligence takes your job may be further off than most people think. At a panel about the impact of generative AI, Marc Warner, the chief executive of AI consultancy Faculty, dismissed fears that adopting the technology at scale would automatically lead to a mass culling of employees.

The next AI winter could be caused by users’ trust issues—but ‘mindful friction’ can keep it from happening: Paula Goldman, Salesforce’s chief ethical and humane use officer, told Fortune executive news editor Nick Lichtenberg that AI should play the role of copilot alongside humans—not exist on autopilot. "We need next-level controls," she said. "We need people to be able to understand what’s going on across the AI system."

Fortune announces AI tool with Accenture to help analyze and visualize the Fortune 500: The 95-year-old Fortune is entering the age of AI with a new tool aimed at better analyzing the Fortune 500. The new product, called Fortune Analytics, is being developed in partnership with Accenture. It will deliver ChatGPT-style responses based on 20 years of financial data from the Fortune 500 and Global 500 lists, as well as related articles, Fortune chief financial officer and incoming CEO Anastasia Nyrkovskaya announced.

Of course, there are puh-lenty of other AI happenings to ponder, so (drumroll) onward to the news:

Sharon Goldman
sharon.goldman@fortune.com

This story was originally featured on Fortune.com