Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ:MSFT) chief economist Michael Schwarz has become the latest to issue stark warnings over the potential future misuse of artificial intelligence (AI).
“I am confident AI will be used by bad actors,” he told the World Economic Forum on Wednesday, “and yes it will cause real damage.”
Schwarz was speaking ahead of a meeting between Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and US vice president Kamala Harris on Thursday, where tech giant bosses have been invited to have a “frank discussion” over the risks of AI.
“It can do a lot of damage in the hands of spammers with elections and so on,” Schwarz continued, echoing similar warnings from ex-Google AI expert Geoffrey Hinton on Monday.
Hinton had argued that the development of an AI-powered version of Microsoft’s Bing search engine had sent tech companies such as Google into a flurry to respond, potentially jeopardising the safe development of such programmes.
“Microsoft is in full move “fast and break things” mode,” Fuller Money strategist Eoin Treacy agreed, “other companies are playing catch up”.
“Some are trying to be measured in how they consider ethics and bias” though, he reassured.
Both Schwarz and Hinton warned of the dangers of AI technology falling into the wrong hands after the rapid rise of OpenAI’s ChatGPT late last year sparked a frenzy among tech firms to build their own language models.