Still, AI developers and tech company executives say caution is warranted. Elon Musk said it may be time to slow down when it comes to AI, even as his social media company X rolls out the second version of its AI bot, Grok-2, which includes image generators in addition to language and sound generation. Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, the company that makes ChatGPT, told Congress in May 2023 that government intervention would be critical to mitigating the risks of increasingly powerful AI systems. “As this technology advances, we understand that people are anxious about how it could change the way we live. We are too,” Altman said at a U.S. Senate hearing on the advances being made in AI. Executives of Google, Microsoft and two other companies developing AI met with Vice President Kamala Harris that same month as the Biden administration considered initiatives meant to ensure AI improves lives without putting people’s rights and safety at risk, according to the Associated Press. “The proliferation of false material through AI, I think, is genuine concern,” said Zico Kolter, the current head of Carnegie Mellon’s Machine Learning Department. “I think it goes without saying the downside of this is not that people will believe everything. The net result is that you stop believing anything.” Geoffrey Hinton, a British-Canadian computer scientist dubbed the “Godfather of AI,” raised eyebrows last year when he told CBC Radio in Canada, “I think that it’s conceivable that this kind of advanced intelligence could just take over from us.” Hinton last year resigned his post at Google, where he was helping to spearhead the company’s AI technology. “It would mean the end of people,” he said. A “spider” robot is seen at Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute. Pittsburgh and AI With AI’s connection to Carnegie Mellon, tech companies have taken root in Pittsburgh — many in a stretch in the East End nicknamed AI Avenue. Major companies like Google have opened branch offices in Bakery Square, and new tech startups are opening their doors. Mark Chrystal, CEO of startup Netail, is working to develop the program Profitmind to help increase retail sales and improve profits. Retail workers tell Profitmind what the goals of the business are. The program then examines the competition and internal data and makes recommendations. Batteries Plus, one of the companies using Profitmind, said the program makes it so the user doesn’t need extensive knowledge in economics to understand the recommendations. “They blend the art of data with AI,” said Peter Evans, CFO of Batteries Plus. The Profitmind chatbot allows retailers to ask questions and test pricing plans. “The idea is not to replace the teams that are there but actually to just take a lot of the rote work off their plates and supercharge the teams to be able to capture more sales and profits,” Chrystal said. Chrystal said he believes AI will bring a new industrial revolution. “It’s going to change the world as much as the invention of electricity,” he said. Another Pittsburgh company, Bloomfield.Ai, is using AI and camera images to interpret the health of farm crops. Bloomfield.Ai CEO Mark DeSantis said the software is attached to cameras that are driven around fields of fruits and vegetables. It captures the images, assesses the crops on the vine and offers solutions to farmers. Local investment company Walnut Capital believes Pittsburgh is primed to become the next large tech hub. Company President Todd Reidbord and CEO Gregg Perelman are building in Bakery Square to house a variety of tech companies. They’re calling it the New Age AI Hub. Walnut Capital has invested in more than 20 AI companies in Western Pennsylvania. In addition to Netail and Pearl Street Technologies, Walnut Capital most recently added two other companies, Lovelace Ai and Strategy Robot. Walnut Capital’s goal is to keep adding smaller spec spaces for AI companies and to build a community of such companies that can help each other develop the technology. Pearl Street Technologies is an example of how that can work. Larry Pileggi, one of Pearl Street’s co-founders, also teaches at Carnegie Mellon. He and his students founded several AI-based companies. Pearl Street is trying to improve the function and reliability of the nation’s electric power grid — an idea that came from one of Pileggi’s other companies’ efforts to improve the production of computer chips. Despite the excitement around the idea of an AI industrial revolution, public concern remains. Chrystal tried to calm those worries. Megan Trotter, Dinari Clacks and Haley Moreland are TribLive staff writers. You can reach Megan at mtrotter@triblive.com, Dinari at dclacks@triblive.com and Haley at hmoreland@triblive.com.