Eric Schmidt Says Elon Musk Is 'Exactly Wrong' About AI (techcrunch.com)

At the VivaTech conference in Paris, Alphabet CEO Eric Schmidt was asked about Elon Musk's warnings about AI. He responded by saying: "I think Elon is exactly wrong. He doesn't understand the benefits that this technology will provide to making every human being smarter. The fact of the matter is that AI and machine learning are so fundamentally good for humanity." TechCrunch reports: He acknowledged that there are risks around how the technology might be misused, but he said they're outweighed by the benefits: "The example I would offer is, would you not invent the telephone because of the possible misuse of the telephone by evil people? No, you would build the telephone and you would try to find a way to police the misuse of the telephone."

After wryly observing that Schmidt had just given the journalists in the audience their headlines, interviewer (and former Publicis CEO) Maurice Levy asked how AI and public policy can be developed so that some groups aren't "left behind." Schmidt replied that government should fund research and education around these technologies. "As [these new solutions] emerge, they will benefit all of us, and I mean the people who think they're in trouble, too," he said. He added that data shows "workers who work in jobs where the job gets more complicated get higher wages -- if they can be helped to do it." Schmidt also argued that contrary to concerns that automation and technology will eliminate jobs, "The embracement of AI is net positive for jobs." In fact, he said there will be "too many jobs" -- because as society ages, there won't be enough people working and paying taxes to fund crucial services. So AI is "the best way to make them more productive, to make them smarter, more scalable, quicker and so forth."

Comments

Need my popcorn

[LynnwoodRooster]

NERD FIGHT!

Putin

[BeauHD (54)]

He may be wrong but we must push forward as a civilized world to defeat Putin's future Al based botnets.

Remember kids, I called it in 2018!

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Musk is very wrong, so is Eric Shit. So is all of Silicon Valley. This is like watching the inmates at Shutter Island debate the content of their delusions. AI is not AI, nor is it 'intelligent'. Could it be a deadly tool in the wrong hands? Yes, and it probably will be. Nothing about that implies consciousness or magical powers of smarts (which Eric never had in the first place, and clearly understands about as well as a cockroach gets calculus). It's amazing how being a psychopath is regarded as a form of enlightened genius in the Valley). I just can't even at this point, it passed absurd about a million miles back. Everybody on this particular train is fuuuuuucked.

Re:Yes

[arth1]

I think both of them are wrong too, but for other reasons.
The problem I see is that the smarter our helpers get, the dumber it allows us to be. Just look at computers for a good example of that. As they became ubiquitous and smarter on the inside, with user interfaces dumbed down for "everybody" to use, there was no longer a need for people to learn anything. Or calculators - people don't feel they need to understand even simple maths anymore, because there's a calculator (or calculator app, or google's built-in calculator) to do everything for them.
I truly fear that as the helpers get smarter, we get dumber. Only a few people will need to be smart enough to program them, but even that is dumbed down with higher and higher levels of abstractions.

Re:Yes

[blahplusplus]

I truly fear that as the helpers get smarter, we get dumber.

People were dumb ways before computers, the reality we were always a lazy species. We invented backhoes to do the digging instead of digging ditches ourselves, we invented snowplows to plow snow so we didn't have to do it ourselves. That is the nature of invention - we invent things that we find tedious so we can do the things we want to do.

The reality is what you complain about is actually necessary, whatever task we are not doing allows us to free up resources to focus on some other aspect of the task. I think you don't really understand how non trivially complex the universe really is. If having calculators free's up mental resources to come up with new ideas about how the universe works, I'm all for it. We can spend more time theorizing and let calculators worry about calculating.

The same way dishwashers and other labour saving devices allow us to spend time on something else.

So he's disagreeing by agreeing?

[Rei]

He acknowledged that there are risks around how the technology might be misused, but he said they're outweighed by the benefits:"The example I would offer is, would you not invent the telephone because of the possible misuse of the telephone by evil people? No, you would build the telephone and you would try to find a way to police the misuse of the telephone."

That's pretty much the exact same thing Musk argues, so I'm confused by how this is a disagreement. Is someone interpreting Musk as trying to hinder the development of AI? Is that why he employs a huge team of neural net developers at Tesla? Why he founded OpenAI? And Neuralink?

Re:So he's disagreeing by agreeing?

[postbigbang]

AI has no feelings, doesn't cry, isn't likely to laugh at the million jokes that can it can memorize, and would put a bullet through you and wouldn't think twice.

This is because there are those that would abuse AI who can't start with a kernel that mandates the above emotions-- not the murderous ones.

I wouldn't trust Schmidt for a second. He blew it at Sun, then Novell, then turned Google from a Do No Evil into Do What's Good For Shareholders and keep sucking your privacy with a big straw.

Musk is a BS artist, but when his promises finally arrive, they work after a while, and faster than Bill Gate's promises ever worked. Expecting corporate executives to have a soul these days is asking too much..... same goes for politicians.

Re:So he's disagreeing by agreeing?

[BlueStrat]

That's pretty much the exact same thing Musk argues, so I'm confused by how this is a disagreement. Is someone interpreting Musk as trying to hinder the development of AI?

Musk wants laws/Acts/etc passed and enforced to make certain AI is not misused. Schmidt wants no or very little effective limits on what "Do Evil" Google/Alphabet can do with AI, so Schmidt deliberately mischaracterizes Musk's position to try to minimize the impact of Musk's message.

Strat

Short term or Long term?

[aberglas]

In the short term, next few decades, AI will have the effect of being able to concentrate power. Centralized information, with the ability to process it. Pervasive surveillance. We are seeing this actively pursued in China. And also semi-autonomous robot soldiers. This is uncharted territory.

AI will also be really handy, e.g. better Google searches, self driving cars, cheaper services. What happens to the unskilled workforce is very difficult to tell. Will alternative opportunities arise for them? In the short term, probably.

In the longer term, 50..200 years, the AI will become truly intelligent. It will be able to program itself. At that point it will no longer need humans, and it is difficult to see why it would want humans around. Note that this long term is the lifetimes of our grandchildren.

http://www.computersthink.com/

(Schmidt is hardly an unbiased commentator. He knows people are wary of Google's growing power and wants to be able to make money without pesky concerns about the future of humanity.)

Re:Short term or Long term?

[geekmux]

AI will also be really handy, e.g. better Google searches, self driving cars, cheaper services. What happens to the unskilled workforce is very difficult to tell. Will alternative opportunities arise for them? In the short term, probably.

Forget AI. Automation will be all that's necessary to replace an unskilled workforce, or displace it enough to create a massive impact on our economy and tax structure, which will likely happen within the next decade. Doesn't matter if you try and give it a fancy name like "UBI", it's still nothing more than a welfare program, and someone still employed is going to have to pay for that. AI is targeting the skilled workforce.

In the longer term, 50..200 years, the AI will become truly intelligent. It will be able to program itself. At that point it will no longer need humans, and it is difficult to see why it would want humans around. Note that this long term is the lifetimes of our grandchildren.

Whenever and whatever "true" AI is, has become irrelevant. It will only take "good enough" AI to replace a human workforce. And that sure as hell isn't half a century away. It's likely to impact the current working generation considerably. It doesn't take much to unsettle the masses, particularly when the impact is to essentially make them unemployable.

The utopia we seek is a marriage of humans and AI that enables all of us to live out our lives to the maximum extent possible. A 40-hour workweek and the concept of humans being forced to toll away at jobs for the majority of their lives becomes an extinct concept. We learn to maximize our creativity with AI, and specifically limit and nurture it to improve life for all.

Unfortunately, we both know the best-case scenario is not statistically likely. Greed feeding a warmongering thirst to engage in unending warfare to maximize profit paints our future Orwellian canvas. We're probably closer to making Skynet out of any future intelligence. Unless we Solve for Greed, humans and their future are sadly highly predictable.

Both sides are right

[Anonymous Coward]

Elon didnâ(TM)t say AI is evil. Schmidt is misrepresenting him. Why else would Elon start Open AI? Elon is wants a framework to use AI responsibly thatâ(TM)s all.... put his warnings the right context.

They both agree AI is the future and are right.

But Schmidt obviously do not want regulation and restraints on Googleâ(TM)s business model. Unfettered access to your personal and behaviour data to train the AI.

Schmidt is being very Evil by playing the game this way.

Re:Both sides are right

[Anonymous Coward]

Elon Musk may be wrong, but Eric Schmidt is also wrong and, even worse, what he's saying is nothing more than PR bullshit.

AI is net positive for jobs." In fact, he said there will be "too many jobs" -- because as society ages, there won't be enough people working and paying taxes to fund crucial services. So AI is "the best way to make them more productive"

Sounds great, except that's not how companies see AI.

McDonald's and Burger King see AI as a way to make higher profits by getting rid of all their employees and replacing them with AI-driven robots.

Investment banks, insurance companies and stock brokerages see AI as a way to make higher profits by getting rid of all their employees and replacing them with AI-driven robots.

Manufacturing companies see AI as a way to make higher profits by getting rid of all their employees and replacing them with AI-driven robots.

Notice the pattern here?

Re: Both sides are right

[c6gunner]

Sounds great, except that's not how companies see AI.

That's true, except it doesn't matter how they see it. Prior generations also saw technology as a way to eliminate jobs and increase profits. And yet we are all better off for it today.

Notice the pattern here?

The main pattern I notice is that you seem to believe that eliminating jobs and increasing profit is inherently a bad thing, or somehow contradicts the idea that we will have plenty of jobs and wealth in the future.

Re: Both sides are right

[turbidostato]

" Prior generations also saw technology as a way to eliminate jobs and increase profits. And yet we are all better off for it today."

As you know, past performance is no indication of future's.

"The main pattern I notice is that you seem to believe that eliminating jobs and increasing profit is inherently a bad thing"

In fact, it is: it's morally despicable. That it helped part of humankind to increase their living standards is just a (well, not "just": it has been a hughe) side effect.

Let's go to extremes: war has brought us a lot (a hughe lot) of advances on basically all fronts. It still is inherently a bad thing (not telling that the egotistic search of profits is as bad a thing as war, but stating the obvious: bad things can bring good side effects and still be bad things).

"we will have plenty of jobs and wealth in the future."

There *will* be plenty of wealth. The interesting thing is *who* will get it. It's not only that past decades have increased inequality but -and that's something most people seem not to be aware of, that's been the standard for most of our History. In fact, the big redistribution of wealth has only been a thing of about a century somewhere between XIX and XX, peaking at the short decades between the end of WWII and 1980 (and even then, just for less than a third of global population). It is not that we are *moving* to big inequality, but just *returning* to our traditional standard of big inequality.

And regarding jobs, I don't own a crystal ball, but not understanding this time is most probably different is ludicrous. In the past new technologies brought us more jobs in the end (and this is another interesting point: "in the end". Industrial revolution increasing the standard of live *after no less than two generations* was of no help for those poor souls that, i.e., had to work in a mine while 9 y.o.) because people were still the "intelligent part" of the equation and they were those in command of the new technologies. This time, and for the first time in History, it *is* the technology the one that will get in command, not the masses. Where in the past you had an elite "inventing/developing" the technologies that would allow the masses to increase their productivity (and even a shorter elite getting most of the profits), now it is an elite "inventing/developing" the technologies that will allow *the technology itself* to increase its productivity (and, again, even a shorter elite reaping most of the profits) -and that's in a world that is at its population peak.

The solution is obvious, while seemingly unacceptable -specially to US mentality, where anything resembling "communism" == "swear words": shared/governmental ownership/control of (basic) means of production.

If you think of it, it's not a novelty at all but just an extension of already stablished trends: government already has a strong grasp of things like military, education, healthcare (and a big share of post-WWII development, everywhere but USA, was pushed by government-owned companies, and even in USA by government subsidized companies, a trend "liberals" have been strongly working to reverse for their own profits in last decades)... so it's only a matter of extending its grasp and adding things like food and shelter. The transition is also obvious: progressively moving emphasis on taxes to consumerism (VAT) and labour (income taxes) to production (corporate taxes) and financial (taxes on stock profits). This way it won't matter if increases in productivity end up in increased labour of not, if wealth gets redistributed or concentrated. Oh, and forget about that stupidity about universal basic income (which is a trap because it looks more palatable to US mentality -it involves moving money around, which is a very capitalist thing, therefore not a communist thing, therefore acceptable). Money on itself doesn't equate wealth (something even Adam Smith knew). UBI just means inflation (despite results of very controlled / artificial so called "experiments")

Re: Both sides are right

[Aighearach]

"by themselves," but otherwise I agree.

I especially loved his "million year trend." Yeah, fucker, what happens if you open an anthropology book and find out that we only agree on what happened in the past ~4k years?

Re:Siding more with Schmidt on this one.

[rogoshen1]

AI will confer an ever greater first mover advantage than Trinity. It is also very easy to dress up in a friendly manner (at least relative to nukes). With AI, once the genie is out of the bottle, it's never going back in. Unless you're a guy like Schmidt, you *should* be terrified of it. You might get better navigation in your self driving car; but at what cost? And are the benefits even remotely distributed among society as a whole?

Basically, entrusting private companies like google with something of this magnitude is irresponsible bordering on insane.
We've reached a point in our technological evolution where every single human being on this planet could easily live a life of middle class security, with much left over. All AI is going to do is FURTHER concentrate wealth and power into a very select group of hands (and speaking of hands, i think Schmidt is showing his here). The rise of AI should be seen as an affront to human agency and dignity. We have two related trends: the growth of a knowledge economy, and the rise of automation. Gee, i wonder what the outcome will be?

Herbert was right, even way back when in 1965.

Re: The telephone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why anyone listens to Eric Schmidt about anything is a mystery.

Re:That makes no sense.

[WaffleMonster]

The definition of "artificial intelligence" does not include consciousness, nor magical powers. Nor does it require intelligence. You see, that's why the word "artificial" is placed in front of the word "intelligence." It isn't intelligence. It isn't supposed to be intelligence.

Problem with words like "AI" and "Cloud" they convey no more useful information than saying "that thing". They can mean anything by themselves. It is only with qualifying context can useful information be exchanged.

Default mental picture of what they represent varies so wildly by individuals as to be a total write off. It's counterproductive to bother to invoke them at this point.

Your belief that that which is currently labeled "AI" doesn't actually qualify as "AI" is simply false, and is founded entirely on your complete ignorance as to what the word "AI" actually means. You are using the word wrong, and that's a fact.

Language belongs to everyone not just yourself or the people who write dictionaries. What languages means depends on what society says it means at any point in time.

The fact is "AI" has become an empty meaningless term.

psychoanalyzing an artificial intelligence

[swell]

Humans are an emotional basketcase. If you have doubts look at the superstitious religious nuts in every corner of the globe. As a result, it is to be expected that these irrational humans expect smart computers to also be emotional. To retaliate when their feelings are hurt. To dance in triumph when they win a chess game. To pursue supremacy over humans and rule the world.

Listen people, it's time to STOP ANTHROPOMORPHIZING COMPUTERS ! They hate it when you do that.

Re: That makes no sense.

[aberglas]

The trouble is people expect "Vehicle" to mean more than one thing.

For AI there is
* The AI Today. Not very intelligent.
* The AI in 10 years time. Can drive cars, interpret videos, do a better job of Googling.
* The AI in 100 years time. Can think for itself. Does not need Humans to program it.

They are very different things, yet people confuse them.

For many people, the last one does not exist due to the simple logic.
* AI is not very intelligent today
* Ergo, AI will never be very intelligent

Post this above your computer

[Sqreater]

Post the normal curve of human intelligence above your computer so you see it every day. Now put a vertical line at the midpoint. Half the population of the country - and the world - is at, or below this "normal IQ," which is fine for normal human life, but isn't enough for more advanced work. Now move this line slowly to the right. When you create a world where AI and AI driven machines and processes dominate the work of the world, more and more of these people to the left of the line will find themselves left out of work and the life-giving resources and satisfactions that come from work. These people will not be empowered by AI and advanced technology because they will not be able to help make it or use it in any but the most menial and degrading ways - if at all. The pie-in-the-sky beliefs of those who want to create AI as a substitute for people are either selfishly self-deluded, or just stupid. The whole point of AI is to destroy human participation, just like the "expert systems" they tried to create in the 1980s by interviewing and putting the knowledge base and way of thinking of experts in various specialties into computers. For what reason? Obviously to eliminate people. We know that today they are working mightily to have computers program in substitution for highly intelligent and highly paid human programmers. You think you are immune? The line moves right.

Re: That makes no sense.

[lgw]

For many people, the last one does not exist due to the simple logic.
* AI is not very intelligent today
* Ergo, AI will never be very intelligent

The better argument is: there has never been an "AI" with general intelligence, and there is no evidence this is possible. What some call "strong AI" is an extreme of general intelligence - human-equivalent or -superior intelligence, but there's a lower bar here that hasn't been cleared. No "AI" has ever been able to solve a problem is hasn't specifically been trained to solve, and it would be a surprise to experts if that ever happened with current methods.

Strong AI and weak AI are not different points on a continuum from an implementation perspective. They are very different in kind. Strong AI is simply not anything like weak AI with more processing power.

Could it happen in 100 years? Sure - that's a long time. But it's not some natural evolution of what we have today.