Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt says AI poses an 'existential risk'

Schmidt admitted he did not have a solution for effective regulation of AI systems but said that it was a, "broader question for society".(Image: Milken Institute Global Conference 2019)

Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, has joined the increasing number of prominent voices and expressed his concerns about the growing popularity of AI-based products such as ChatGPT.

Schmidt, speaking at The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council Summit, said that AI was an "existential risk" and has the potential to get "many people harmed or killed".

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The former Google executive said that AI could potentially help detect "zero-day exploits" or even discover "new forms of biology", and while this was, "fiction today, but its reasoning is likely to be true. And when that happens, we want to be ready to know how to make sure these things are not misused by evil people.”

Speaking on regulation, Schmidt admitted he did not have a solution for effective regulation of AI systems but said that it was a, "broader question for society". He also said that it would be unlikely that a regulatory system would be set-up in the United States.

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Lawmakers from the European Union (EU) have already reached a preliminary agreement on the European Artificial Intelligence act, which would help regulate the spread of AI systems.

In March, this year, more than 1,000 prominent executives including Elon Musk signed an open letter that called for a six-month pause in training AI models till a regulatory system was in place.