Eric Schmidt: "AI Poses Existential Risk... Could Kill Many Humans"

Former Google CEO Warning

Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt warned that artificial intelligence (AI) could injure or kill many people in the near future.

Eric Schmidt, former Chairman of Google

According to foreign media including the British daily The Telegraph, Schmidt emphasized this on the 24th (local time) at a CEO council hosted by The Wall Street Journal (WSJ), stating that AI poses an existential risk. He explained, "Existential risk means that a very, very large number of people get hurt or die."

Schmidt explained that AI could soon be used for 'zero-day attacks' or life-related scientific purposes. A zero-day attack refers to hacking or other attacks launched immediately after a security vulnerability is discovered in core systems such as operating systems.

Schmidt said, "This is currently fictional, but the reasoning itself is likely true," adding, "So we must prepare to prevent malicious actors from misusing it."

On that day, Schmidt said that controlling the reckless spread of AI technology would be very difficult, explaining the reason by comparing it to nuclear technology. He said that nuclear weapons require enriched uranium, adding, "Because it was really difficult to obtain enriched uranium, we are alive today." Nuclear weapons are typically produced with uranium enriched to over 90%, which requires highly advanced technical skills, and this was what helped prevent their widespread proliferation.

On the other hand, regarding AI, he pointed out, "It is difficult to solve the proliferation problem because (AI technology) can be stolen via hard disk drives or portable storage devices (USB)." He said, "(AI regulation) is a broad question posed to society," but predicted that the U.S. authorities are unlikely to create a new regulatory agency to control AI.

Schmidt has expressed concerns about AI before. Earlier, the U.S. National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence (NSCAI), chaired by Schmidt in 2021, published a report pointing out that the U.S. was not prepared for the AI era. In the 756-page report, NSCAI stated, "Americans have not yet considered how profoundly the AI revolution will impact our economy, national security, and welfare," and urged, "We must make critical decisions now to defend the U.S. from the malicious use of AI."

Schmidt has been a leading figure in the internet and mobile industries centered in Silicon Valley since the 2000s. He served as Google's CEO from 2001 to 2011 and was chairman of Alphabet, Google's parent company, from 2015 to 2017.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.