As countries jostle to win the artificial intelligence race, Google’s former CEO cautioned that AI could pose “extreme risks” if it falls into the wrong hands.
Tech billionaire Eric Schmidt told the BBC in an interview after the Paris AI summit that the booming technology could even be used by terrorists or “rogue states” to harm innocent people using weapons created with it.
“Think about North Korea, or Iran, or even Russia, who have some evil goal. This technology is fast enough for them to adopt that they could misuse it and do real harm,” Schmidt said, adding that it could even mean creating weapons to facilitate “a bad biological attack.”
Schmidt noted the 9/11 attacks, in which Islamist terrorists hijacked planes and flew them into the World Trade Center in New York: “I always worry about the ‘Osama bin Laden’ scenario, where you have a really evil person who takes over some aspect of our modern life and uses it to harm innocent people.”
The former Google chief called for government oversight of private tech companies developing AI models: “It’s really important that governments understand what we’re doing and keep their eye on us.”
But Schmidt also warned that overregulation could hinder the pace of innovation, citing Europe as a bad example, echoing remarks he made earlier this week in Paris.
“The AI revolution, which is the most important revolution in my opinion since electricity, is not going to be invented in Europe,” Schmidt said, accusing the EU of overregulating and driving away industry investment.