A former Google CEO has warned that artificial intelligence be used to kill people in the future.
AI tools like ChatGPT have become increasingly popular in the span of a few months.
However, several prominent figures in the tech industry have sounded an alarm about the rise of AI tools, Elon Musk even went ahead and signed an open letter asking the AI developers to halt the work for six months at least.
Now, Eric Schmidt, who spent two decades at the helm of the search giant, told a gathering of senior executives on Wednesday that he believes AI presents an ‘existential risk’ for humanity ‘defined as many, many, many, many people harmed or killed.’
The software Ph.D. said the technology, which Google is helping spearhead through its relatively primitive Bard chatbot system – could be ‘misused by evil people’ when it becomes more advanced.
Schmidt, who recently chaired the US National Security Commission on AI, is the latest to make such claims.
‘There are scenarios not today, but reasonably soon, where these systems will be able to find zero-day exploits in cyber issues, or discover new kinds of biology,’ Schmidt said before The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in London.
So-called ‘zero-day exploits’ are security flaws in code anywhere from personal computing to digital banking to infrastructure that have only just been discovered and thus not yet patched-up by cybersecurity teams.
Zero-days are the prized tools in hackers’ arsenal.
Schmidt did not go into detail on what ‘new kinds of biology’ dreamed up by a maliciously run AI worry him most.
‘Now, this is fiction today,’ Schmidt cautioned, ‘but its reasoning is likely to be true. And when that happens, we want to be ready to know how to make sure these things are not misused by evil people.’
Schmidt also highlighted the importance of governments taking action to prevent the misuse of AI by malicious individuals.
He stressed the need for regulations and monitoring to ensure that AI is not used as a weapon or for evil purposes.
