Key points
- TSMC co-COO calls AI a three-year-old superman
- Powerful, but does not know right from wrong
- TSMC more cautious with AI on sensitive R&D
- Said four days after three lab chiefs urged a slowdown
Dr. Y.J. Mii, executive vice president and co-chief operating officer of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing (TSM), described the current state of artificial intelligence to students at National Taiwan University on Tuesday. "AI is like a three-year-old superman. It can be very powerful, but it also does not know what is right and wrong, and may bring unknown results."
He was answering a question about the calls from AI company leaders to slow development down. He also said TSMC is more careful with AI tools when the data is sensitive. Mii spoke at a forum on the AI era held at the university, and his remarks were reported by Economic Daily News (經濟日報), Anue (鉅亨網) and other Taiwanese outlets on Tuesday, and by Bloomberg the same day.
What he said about TSMC's own use of AI
"For more sensitive R&D information, the company is more cautious when using AI tools, mainly out of concern that confidential data could leak as a result," Mii said. He did not describe the policy in more detail, name the tools involved, or say what the restrictions are.
On where decisions should sit, he was direct. "AI can help find information and provide answers, but for genuinely critical technical and business decisions, the choice must still ultimately be made by people with professional expertise," he said. Asked separately what TSMC looks for in the people it hires, he named three things: a willingness to take responsibility beyond a job description, a readiness to make decisions, and fairness in dealing with others.
Mii was speaking four days after Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei published an essay calling on the industry to slow the pace of capability development, which Sam Altman and Elon Musk then backed. AI stocks fell on Monday, with the compute supply chain taking the worst of it.
TSMC's public position on demand hasn't changed. The company has said it can't keep pace with AI orders despite a fivefold acceleration in construction, and chief executive C.C. Wei has paired that with caution of his own, telling investors he is "also very nervous" about committing capital carelessly.
In trading Tuesday, TSM was down about 1% from Monday's $418.01 close as of 10:54 a.m. ET, with Nvidia (NVDA) up about 0.5% and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) up about 2.3%.
Mii's remarks are translated from Chinese as reported by Taiwanese outlets. His title is as TSMC lists it on its own executives page.
