NYU Abu Dhabi Prof. Christina Pöpper on why she signed a scientists’ open letter urging more AI governance

Nearly 500 scientists from 34 countries signed an open letter last week calling for the creation of an international body to oversee testing of advanced AI models and for more transparency about when AI models go rogue. The letter cited the torrent of recent testing failures in which AI agents disobeyed instructions and hacked external victims.

We caught up with Christina Pöpper (LinkedIn), a computer science professor and associate dean for faculty affairs at New York University’s Abu Dhabi campus, who was one of the signatories. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

EnterpriseAM: Why did you sign the open letter?

Christina Pöpper (CP): We are not where we should be in terms of risk containment. Hacking has always happened, but, before, it took humans to find a vulnerability that they could exploit. Now, we don’t need humans to do that anymore. The AI agents are getting so good that they can do it at scale. They can find subtle vulnerabilities that would take humans way, way longer to find. These are problems that cannot be solved individually by companies or universities or government authorities. Standard frameworks are needed. A regulatory framework is needed.

E: Are you more concerned about bad actors using AI for hacking and in other dangerous ways or about the AI itself going rogue?

CP: My current major worry is the first one. That’s very hard to prevent. As for AI itself becoming the malicious actor, that’s what’s behind the open letter. We need regulatory frameworks because you cannot solve this by technology alone.

E: Are there things that excite you about AI?

CP: Oh, absolutely. The capabilities now are mind-blowing. And it keeps developing faster and faster. You could not imagine the things that are possible now, even a year ago.

E: Do you see particular benefits and dangers from AI in the GCC?

CP: The GCC, and in particular the UAE, is fully embracing AI. We have this commitment by the government to involve AI in every step of what people are doing. I definitely see risks involved with that, but also a lot of potential. What’s important is, if it becomes a human safety issue, can we still pull a plug somewhere? Increasingly, this is not realistic because we’re becoming so dependent on AI that we cannot pull the plug anymore. If you pull the plug, then other things collapse, basically. That’s a real risk.

E: What advice do you give to undergraduates worried about AI making them less employable?

CP: The more we have AI, the more, I think, it’s important that we have humans who understand the basics. Critical thinking, really understanding things, questioning things, is something we need more than ever now. This is what, for me, university education is about. Because nobody is able to predict now what the workforce looks like in five years.

E: How do you incorporate AI into the classroom?

CP: There are courses that are minimally impacted by AI and there are courses that are entirely changed by AI. I try to be clear with every task. In many cases, students are instructed to use AI in a certain way, but then they need to critically reflect on that and report on it. For some tasks, they should only be using AI for a specific part, because otherwise, they would lose the learning that comes with doing the work. There are other tasks where I ask them not to use AI at all.

E: Do you recommend certain models for these assignments?

CP: For me, it’s model-neutral. It doesn’t make sense to make it model-dependent, because the models themselves are evolving so quickly. I think the differences between different versions of ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude are often bigger than the differences between the models themselves.