Eric Schmidt, former Google chairman and chief executive officer, said companies need to take advantage of AI, but preserve “human dignity and values” and this has become “hugely difficult to maintain that balance,” because systems are just moving too quickly. “We will soon have computers running on their own deciding what to do,” he said. Eventually, Schmidt predicts, the industry will go from AI agents, software that can complete complex tasks autonomously, to tell the computer to learn everything. “At that point we need to think about unplugging it,” he said. AI has automated so many aspects of online media buying, ad optimization and ad serving. It also has revolutionized consumer privacy, ad targeting without using browser cookies that track consumer purchases and intent. advertisement advertisement Schmidt pointed to social media as an example during an interview on ABC News. Social media changed the global thinking, Schmidt said, “and now imagine a much more intelligent, much stronger way of sending messages, inventing things, the rate of innovation, drug discovery and all of that, plus all sorts of bad things, like weapons and cyberattacks.” Power of this new type of intelligence, he said, will give each person a tool the equivalent of a polymath in their pocket giving advise for everything, including advertisers. Companies are testing models, so they don’t encourage people “to kill themselves” or other horrific things. The fear is that technology is moving so fast that companies will omit these things and cause people harm. Schmidt said government oversite is not yet happening like it should. Government is not yet doing what needs to be done to regulate AI as it becomes a superintelligence. “The companies are reporting to the government the steps they are taking, which is a good thing,” he said. He also said it’s important to consider advancements made by China, and it’s becoming more important for the United States to win this race, globally. {Categories} _Category: Takes{/Categories} {URL}https://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/401918/{/URL} {Author}unknown{/Author} {Image}https://s3.amazonaws.com/media.mediapost.com/dam/cropped/2024/12/16/ericschmidt-600_gsv7RIH.jpg{/Image} {Keywords}{/Keywords} {Source}POV{/Source} {Thumb}{/Thumb}