Mo Gawdat, a former top executive at Google who once led the company’s Google X “moonshot” division, has expressed concern about the potential negative impacts of AI on human society.
“It is beyond an emergency,” Gawdat said in a new interview on a podcast called “The Diary of a CEO,” hosted by Stephen Bartlett. “It’s the biggest thing we need to do today. It’s bigger than climate change, believe it or not.”
“The likelihood of something incredibly disruptive happening within the next two years that can affect the entire planet,” he added, “is definitely larger with AI than it is with climate change.”
While the devastating side effects of climate change are already being felt around the world, Gawdat believes that AI could also have far-reaching consequences in the near future.
Gawdat’s specific concerns include the potential for cybercrime-abetting tools like deep fakes to cause harm and the possibility of mass job loss due to automation.
Recently, on a different podcast called “Secret Leaders,” Gawdat said that the probability that AI would come to think of humans as “scum” is “very high,” additionally claiming that AI might also create its own “killing machines.”
Despite his fears, Gawdat is in favor of government regulation of the technology and has proposed an idea to mitigate its negative impacts: taxing it heavily. While this may seem like an extreme measure, it could be a starting point for negotiations.
“I have a very clear call for action for governments,” Gawdat said in the “Diary of a CEO” interview. “I’m saying tax AI-powered businesses at 98 percent so suddenly you do what the open letter was trying to do, slow them down a little bit, and at the same time get enough money to pay for all of those people that will be disrupted by the technology.”
It is worth mentioning that while Gawdat’s warnings are legitimate and should be taken into account while dealing with AI but at the same time shouldn’t be taken 100% seriously without considering all aspects.
As AI continues to advance and become more integrated into our daily lives, it will be important for society to carefully consider its potential impacts and take steps to mitigate any negative effects.
