Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt argued that a proposed pause on AI development would only benefit China, though he still expressed concerns about AI's impacts on society.
The ex-executive chairman told the Australian Financial Review that concerns about AI "could be understated," adding that "things could be worse than people are saying."
- Schmidt said he is "not in favor of" a proposal asking artificial intelligence labs to pause their work on advanced AI systems for six months.
- An open letter signed by more
than 18,000 people, including Steve Wozniak and Elon Musk, argues that
pausing the development of AI tools more advanced than GPT-4 will give
time for experts to deploy "shared safety protocols."
- "The
question is what is the right answer," Schmidt told the Financial
Review. "I'm not in favor of a six-month pause because it will simply
benefit China."
- Instead, Schmidt recommended that leaders meet to discuss safeguards "ASAP."
- He
expressed the opinion that government employees don't have a
fundamental understanding of AI and could cause the public sector to
issue a "clumsy" response.
- "So I'm in favor of letting the
industry try to get its act together," Schmidt said. "This is a case
where you don't rush in unless you understand what you're doing."
- Schmidt was Google's CEO from 2001 to 2011 and executive chairman from 2015 to 2018.
- He chaired the U.S. government's National Security Commission on AI and co-wrote the book, "The Age of AI: And Our Human Future," with Henry Kissinger and Dan Huttenlocher.
