• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, December 16, 2024

Eric Schmidt, former Google chairman and chief executive officer, says companies need to take advantage of AI, but must also preserve “human dignity and values.” He says it has become “hugely difficult to maintain that balance,” because systems are just moving too quickly.

“We will soon have computers running on their own deciding what to do,” he said.

Eventually, Schmidt predicts, the industry will advance from AI agents with software that can complete complex tasks autonomously to tell a computer to learn everything. “At that point we need to think about unplugging it,” he says.

AI has automated many aspects of online media buying, ad optimization and ad serving, and has revolutionized consumer privacy and ad targeting without using browser cookies that track consumer purchases and intent.

Schmidt pointed to social media as one example during an interview on ABC News. Social media changed the global thinking, Schmidt said, “and now imagine a much more intelligent, much stronger way of sending messages, inventing things, the rate of innovation, drug discovery and all of that, plus all sorts of bad things, like weapons and cyberattacks.”

The power inherent in this new type of intelligence, he said, will give each person a tool the equivalent of a polymath in their pocket -- which can give advice for everything, including advertisers.

Companies are testing models so they don’t encourage people “to kill themselves” or or to do other harmful, dangerous, and destructive things. The fear is that technology is moving so fast that companies will omit these things and cause people harm.

Schmidt said government oversight is not yet happening in the way that it should. He adds that government is not yet doing what needs to be done to regulate AI as it becomes a form of superintelligence.

“The companies are reporting to the government the steps they are taking, which is a good thing,” he said.

Schmidt also said it’s important to consider advancements made by China, and it is becoming more important for the United States to win this race globally.