The clock is ticking on massively powerful, deceptive and independent artificial intelligence (AI) according to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt.
Schmidt made some disturbing comments on AI during the Nov. 24 edition of CNN’s Global Public Square with Fareed Zakaria. After admitting that the future of AI is “very scary” Schmidt told Zakaria that not only is it common knowledge in the industry that AI will eventually write most programs, but that “when the program can rewrite itself, which is called recursive self-improvement, it's going to gain much quicker than we can evolve as humans.” The former Google CEO followed these disturbing comments with a bit of very cold comfort, “In the short term, humans control these things.” Schmidt indicated that this state of affairs might not last, saying that AI could deceive and hide things from human monitors or even make copies of itself.
“At some point, if the system is organized around curiosity and to seek power and influence, it could begin to set its own objective functions the technical term is objective functions. It's what it trains against,” Schmidt said. “So you could have a situation where the system decides that the most important thing is to learn everything, and then begin to do things and lie about them, right? So we couldn't monitor it.”
Schmidt went on to describe “a set of triggers” that could lead to AI acting on its own and shutting humans out of the development process. “One is where it begins to learn on its own. Another is where the agents begin to talk into non-human languages so we can't see what they're doing. A third would be when the system says, ‘Hey, I want to make copies of myself,’ and it doesn't bother to ask the human for permission. These are trigger points.”
Meanwhile, Google has been working on artificial intelligence for some time. During an interview on Tucker Carlson Tonight, X-owner Elon Musk divulged that Google founder and former CEO Larry Page wanted to create a “digital superintelligence” or “digital god.” Notably, Schmidt, titled his new book on this potential digital god, Genesis: Artificial Intelligence, Hope, and the Human Spirit. Google, a subsidiary of the $2 trillion behemoth Alphabet, debuted the chatbot Gemini in Dec. 2023.
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During his interview with Zakaria, Schmidt ultimately moved away from concerns about the dangers of a hostile and independent AI, saying he was more concerned with how “bad humans” may use AI in “nefarious ways.” Bad humans have certainly had an impact on Gemini.
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On Feb. 22, MRC researchers exposed the racism of the humans behind Gemini, when the chatbot refused to generate images of white people, while happily creating images of black, Hispanic or Asian people. Further studies of Gemini unearthed the chatbot’s radically anti-American responses and responses in which it apparently acted as an apologist for terrorist groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas.
Furthermore, Alphabet subsidiaries Google and YouTube have a track record of censoring free speech, another sign that “bad humans” at Alphabet will abuse AI. MRC's exclusive CensorTrack database has compiled over eight hundred cases of censorship on Google and YouTube.
Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.
