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Eric Schmidt: The AI Optimist?

May 26, 2018 Ian LeViness Opinion, People Comments Off

Eric Schmidt, the chairman of Google’s parent company, Alphabet, has recently been in the news for standing in opposition to some of Elon Musk’s views on AI.

This Friday, at a conference in Paris, he was asked about his views on AI and reportedly began by saying, “I think Elon is exactly wrong about Artificial Intelligence.” Schmidt then added that he agrees with Elon’s worry related to malignant failure modes and any sort of misuse of AI. At the same time, he said clearly that he thinks that Elon is missing out on some of the biggest benefits that come from AI. Schmidt’s biggest point related to this is that through improving our research and therefore, our overall progress in almost every industry, AI will actually make humans smarter over time. In essence, this means that he believes these gains will outweigh any risks that could come from further AI development.

According to a report by CNET, Musk seems to stand out as one of Silicon Valley’s only critics, but it would also be more reasonable to say that he’s not so much a critic, as a realist.

Musk sees benefits.

He is involved in several AI firms. Even DeepMind’s team, which is now effectively incubated inside of Google, has gone public saying that it could be important to develop some sort of emergency switch for every AI system, in case a catastrophe begins to happen. No industry can be perfect. There will always be serious risks that need to be addressed. The concept of tradeoffs exists for a reason. Every decision that you make, in life and in business comes with benefits as well as costs.

This is not to say that a successful man like Eric Schmidt doesn’t know this. He assuredly does, especially with DeepMind being part of Google and Google being heavily invested in the AI industry. The question then becomes: why spin the future of AI as if it will be something completely positive?

First of all, it’s essential to understand what Schmidt’s responses amounted to in the end. He began to conclude his points on the subject by saying that even though it’s important to examine risks like bias in AI algorithms, as well as those related to global AI governance, he still believes the rise of AI is overall, a good thing. As this story just broke on Friday, there’s a lack of analysis on his motivation behind these statements, as of yet.

Part of it could be to boost confidence in Google’s AI efforts and part of it could be something else entirely. For example, we don’t know the true extent of the dealings behind the scenes in Silicon Valley. There might be a very specific reason why Schmidt would like to take the focus away from risk related to AI and then again, there might not be. What’s most likely to be true, at this juncture, is that he’s doing what he can to continue to foster confidence and therefore, further innovation in the space.

Whatever the case, one can surmise that examining the various views of Silicon Valley’s leaders on AI will prove to be quite an interesting and nuanced exercise.

With DeepMind and the AlphaGo already under its belt, one can also safely assume that Google has plans for more striking AI projects in the near future.