EL SEGUNDO, Calif. — The explosion of generative artificial intelligence was a game changer for technology in 2024.

While consumers are intrigued by the possibilities of AI, they are also concerned about what could happen in the future. 

Dr. Chris Mattmann, AI expert and Chief Data and AI Officer at UCLA, joined “Inside the Issues” host Amrit Singh during this holiday season, breaking down the naughty and nice list when it comes to AI.

“One of the nice things is that we finally have devices that allow us to do straight up machine translation. I could give you a device, something called a time kettle. It looks like an AirPod. I can put one in your ear and one in my ear. You could speak to me in Spanish, I could hear it in English. I could speak to you back in English, you’re going to hear it in Spanish. That, and really AI’s push to wearable devices... those are really on the nice list.”

When we talk about the AI naughty list, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt recently warned that when a computer system reaches a point where it can run on their own, or self-improve, it may be time to consider “unplugging”.

But Mattmann reassures that “it is not there yet where AI is going to take over and become a sort of sentient and self-aware.”

Yet - could be the key word here.

However, Mattmann says the key word for the future of AI is actually — responsibility.

“We need to be careful in what we choose to put in decision-making powers... as long as AI is thought of as an assistive tool and used in that way, I think humans and AI have a natural interaction and there’s a very natural way for that to happen. In as much as we start dropping it into Boston dynamics robot dogs, and as much as we start giving AI the ability to actuate, which is what we call in robotics, the ability to interact with the real world, in as much as we do that, we have to be willing to accept the risk of what could potentially happen as AI gets more intelligent and we get newer, GPT models and newer decision-making and things like that.”

To watch the full interview with Dr. Chris Mattmann, click the arrow above.