Barry Diller trusts Sam Altman. But “trust is irrelevant” as artificial general intelligence approaches, he says.

Billionaire media mogul Barry Diller does not believe OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is untrustworthy, despite recent reports to the contrary. On stage at The Wall Street Journal’s “Future of Everything” conference this week, Diller took aim at the AI ​​CEO, whom some former colleagues and board members have accused of being manipulative and sometimes deceitful.

Diller, a friend of Altman, was responding to a question about whether or not people should put their trust in Altman to ensure that artificial intelligence benefits humanity.

In particular, he was asked about a theoretical form of artificial intelligence known as artificial general intelligence, or AGI, which could one day outperform humans at any task.

The media executive, a co-founder of Fox Broadcasting and chairman of IAC and Expedia Group, said that while he believes Altman is sincere in his endeavors, that’s not the area of ​​interest people should really be focusing on. Rather, they are the unknown consequences that will result from artificial intelligence.

“One of the big problems with AI is that it goes far beyond trust,” Diller said. “Maybe that confidence is irrelevant because the things that happen are a surprise to the people who make those things,” he explained. “And I’ve spent a lot of time with a lot of people who have been in the position of creating AI, and they have had a sense of amazement themselves. So… it’s the great unknown. We don’t know. They don’t know.”

Diller added: “We have embarked on something that will change almost everything. This has not been reported enough. Now, whether these huge investments will happen or not – I don’t care much. I’m not invested in it, but progress will be made.”

However, the media mogul said he believes most of the people leading the charge are good stewards, saying he believes Altman is loyal and “a decent person with good values.” (Diller doesn’t mention which AI leaders he thinks are disloyal, and we should take note.)

“But the problem isn’t their leadership. The problem is… they’re really dealing with the unknown. They don’t know what would happen once they get infected with AGI, and we’re close to it. We’re not there yet, but we’re getting closer and closer, faster and faster. And we have to think about guardrails,” Diller noted.

Additionally, he warned that if humans don’t think about guardrails, the alternative is that “another force, the force of general artificial intelligence, will do it itself. And once that happens, once that is unleashed, there’s no turning back,” Diller said.