Two years ago, the launch of ChatGPT started what has been the main trend in consumer technology since then: the generative artificial intelligence. Throughout last year, voices, many highly respected in their respective fields, warning of the possible dangers of an artificial intelligence that will finally be intelligentin the human sense, were common. As this technology has been integrated into more consumer products and users see what it can be useful for and what it is not, alarmism has decreased significantly. But the warnings continue. The last one, that of Eric Schmidtformer CEO of Googlewho has warned of When will it be necessary to ‘unplug’ it?.
Schmidt is not a prophet of the apocalypse. He is one of the only three CEOs that Google has had in its 26 years of existence and was at the head of the company during its ‘prodigious decade’, between 2001 and 2011. Interviewed by the ABC network for the program This Week, Schmidt pointed out in relationship with AI ‘I have never seen an innovation of this magnitude’ and, although he celebrated the ‘remarkable human achievements’ achieved, he also warned of unforeseen dangers of uncontrolled development.
‘We will soon be able to have computers that work on their own, deciding what they want to do‘ said Schmidt. In 2023, he has already warned that there could be computers making their own decisions within 2 to 4 yearswhile on This Week he stated that AI systems could conduct your own research in 1 or 2 years.
When a system begins to ‘self-improve’he explained, ‘we should seriously think about disconnecting it‘. Asked if a powerful system could resist being shut down, Schmidt told host George Stephanopoulos that ‘in theory, there better be someone with their hand on the plug’.
Schmidt stated that he used to think that American technology was a few years ahead of that of Chinabut in the last six months, Beijing has caught up ‘in a remarkable way’. For this reason, it is ‘crucial that the United States wins this race at a global level, and in particular, that it surpasses China.’
Asked what he would do if he were in charge of global AI management, the former CEO of Google stated that ‘the most important thing I would do would be make sure the west wins‘. Secondly, it would identify the ‘worst possible cases’ and would build a second system to monitor the first. ‘Humans will not be able to supervise AI, but AI systems should be able to supervise AI’Schmidt said.