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Artificial intelligence could be weaponized and needs to be reined in by humans, Microsoft’s president and vice-chairman Brad Smith told CNBC in an exclusive interview.
“I feel every technology ever invented [has] the potential to grow to be each a tool and a weapon,” said Smith within the interview aired on Monday.
“We’ve got to be certain that AI stays subject to human control. Whether it is a government, the military or any sort of organization, that’s eager about using AI to automate, say, critical infrastructure, we’d like to be certain that we’ve humans on top of things, that we will slow things down or turn things off.”
Tech leaders around the globe have warned in regards to the risks of artificial intelligence after generative AI-powered chatbot ChatGPT exploded in popularity for its ability to produce humanlike responses. Generative AI is a kind of artificial intelligence technology that may generate content resembling text, images, code and more.
It’s a tool that may also help people think smarter and faster. The most important mistake people could make is to think that it is a tool that may enable people to stop pondering.
Brad Smith
president and vice-chairman, Microsoft
“It’s why we have advocated for not only firms to do the proper thing, but recent laws and regulations that may be certain that there are safety breaks,” Smith told CNBC’s Martin Soong on the sidelines of the Business 20 Summit in Latest Delhi on the weekend.
“We have seen the necessity for this elsewhere. I mean, just imagine electricity will depend on circuit breakers. You set your kids on a faculty bus, knowing that there’s an emergency brake. We have done this before for other technologies. Now we’d like to do it as well for AI,” said Smith.
AI impact on jobs
Meanwhile, the explosive growth of AI has employees worrying that their jobs may very well be replaced by the technology.
A Goldman Sachs report in March said generative AI could impact as many as 300 million jobs around the globe. Between 25% to 50% of the workload in those occupations affected may get replaced, said the investment bank, adding that jobs that require physical labor are less likely to be significantly affected.
The Microsoft executive identified that AI is a tool that supplements human work, and never one which replaces jobs.
“It’s a tool that may also help people think smarter and faster. The most important mistake people could make is to think that it is a tool that may enable people to stop pondering,” said Smith.
“That is why at Microsoft we call our services co-pilots,” said Smith.
“The flexibility to take a Word document and switch it right into a PowerPoint slide does not imply you mustn’t read your PowerPoint slides before you present them. In truth, it is best to go in and edit them and make them just perfect.”
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IBM chairman and CEO Arvind Krishna told CNBC last week that AI will impact white-collar jobs first, but could help employees as a substitute of replacing them.
“It’s absolutely not displacing — it’s augmenting. The more labor we got, especially if it isn’t human-based in any respect, we will create more GDP. We should always all feel higher about it,” said Krishna.