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

Posted by BeauHD on from the only-time-will-tell dept.

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."

8 of 143 comments (clear)

  1. Yes by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Yes by arth1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

  2. So he's disagreeing by agreeing? by Rei · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

    --
    Give a boy a gun and you arm him for a day. Teach him how to make a gun, and the whole metaphor breaks down.
    1. Re:So he's disagreeing by agreeing? by BlueStrat · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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

      --
      Progressivism (aka US 'Liberalism'): Ideas so good they need a police/surveillance-state to enforce.
  3. Short term or Long term? by aberglas · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.)

    1. Re:Short term or Long term? by geekmux · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

  4. Both sides are right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  5. Re:Siding more with Schmidt on this one. by rogoshen1 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.