Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt fears for ‘Bin Laden’ AI scenario
The former CEO of Google is concerned that AI can be used by terrorists or “rogue states” to “harm innocent people.”
“The real worry I’m not the one who most people talk about AI – I talk about extreme risks,” Eric Schmidt told the BBC.
The technology billionaire, who held senior positions at Google from 2001 to 2017, told Tody that it could adopt and abuse the technology to create biological weapons.
He called for government oversight of private tech companies that are developing AI models, but warned that over-regulation could kill innovation.
Mr. Schmidt agrees with us Exit controls Powering state-of-the-art AI systems on powerful microchips.
Former U.S. President Joe Biden left the office and restricted exports of microchips to all but 18 countries to slow adversaries’ advances in AI research.
Donald Trump can still turn that decision around.
“Think about North Korea, Iran, and even Russia, which have some evil targets,” Schmidt said.
He told today’s host Amol Rajan that “this technology is fast enough to adopt it and abuse it and cause real harm.”
He added that the AI system in the wrong hands can be used to develop weapons to create “some evil people with bad biological attacks”.
“I’m always worried about the ‘Osama bin Laden’ scene where you have some really evil people taking over some aspects of our modern life and using it to hurt innocent people,” he said.
Bin Laden planned the 9/11 attack in 2001, and al-Qaeda terrorists controlled planes to kill thousands of people on U.S. soil.
Mr. Schmidt proposed a balance between government oversight of AI development and oversupervision of the department.
“The truth is that AI and the future will be largely established by private companies,” Schmidt said.
“It is very important for the government to understand what we are doing and to focus on our attention.”
He added: “We are not saying that we should be able to do these things unilaterally without supervision, and we think they should be regulated.”
He spoke from Paris, AI Action Summit ended with the United States and the United Kingdom Refused to sign the agreement.
JD Vance, U.S. vice president, said regulations will “kill a change industry, just like killing a change industry when it takes off.
Mr Schmidt said the result of excessive regulation in Europe “is that it is the most important revolution since electricity, something that Europe would not invent.”
He also said that big tech companies “didn’t understand 15 years ago” the potential of AI, but now it does.
“My experience with technology leaders is that they do understand the impact they make, but they may make different values than what governments do,” he said.
When the company acquired Android, Mr. Schmidt was head of Google, which is now the most commonly used mobile operating system in the world.
Now, he supports the move to keep his cell phone out.
“I’m one of those people I don’t know, and I’m going to take responsibility for preventing the world from functioning as perfectly as American technicians think it is.”
“The situation of the child is particularly disturbing to me.”
“I think smartphones with kids can be safe, they just need to adjust…we can all agree that kids should be protected from bad protection in the online world,” he said.
On social media – he supports the advice of a ban on children under 16 – he added: “Why are we going to do such a large, uncontrolled experiment on the most important people in the world, is this the next generation?”
Activists restricting children’s smartphone use Debate on mobile phone addiction and “an activity that attracts children away from healthy development”.
Australian Parliament A law passed In 2024, banning social media from social media under the age of 16, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said it is important to protect children from “hazardousness.”
A recent study published in the Journal of Medicine showed that the ban on mobile phones in schools did not improve students’ behavior or grades.
But it does find that spending longer on smartphones and spending on social media is associated with the results of all these measures with poor results.
