Q&A: At MIT event, Tom Siebel sees ‘terrifying’ consequences from using AI

Speakers ranging from artificial intelligence (AI) developers to law firms grappled this week with questions about the efficacy and ethics of AI during MIT Technology Review’s EmTech Digital conference. Among those who had a somewhat alarmist view of the technology (and regulatory efforts to rein it in) was Tom Siebel, CEO C3 AI and founder of CRM vendor Siebel Systems.

Siebel was on hand to talk about how businesses can prepare for an incoming wave of AI regulations, but in his comments Tuesday he touched on various facets of the debate of generative AI, including the ethics of using it, how it could evolve, and why it could be dangerous.

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As Europeans strike first to rein in AI, the US follows

A proposed set of rules by the European Union would, among other things. require makers of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT,to publicize any copyrighted material used by the technology platforms to create content of any kind.

A new draft of European Parliament’s legislation, a copy of which was attained by The Wall Street Journal, would allow the original creators of content used by generative AI applications to share in any profits that result.

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Three issues with generative AI still need to be solved

Disclosure: Qualcomm and Microsoft are clients of the author.

Generative AI is spreading like a virus across the tech landscape. It’s gone from being virtually unheard a year ago to being one of, if not the, top trending technology today. As with any technology, there are issues that tend to surface with rapid growth, and generative AI is no exception.

I expect three main problems to emerge before the end of the year that few people are talking about today.

The critical need for a hybrid solution

Generative AI uses massive language models, it’s processor-intensive, and it’s rapidly becoming as ubiquitous as browsers. This is a problem because existing, centralized datacenters aren’t structured to handle this kind of load. They are I/O-constrained, processor-constrained, database-constrained, cost-constrained, and size-constrained, making a massive increase in centralized capacity unlikely in the near term, even though the need for this capacity is going vertical. 

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Tech bigwigs: Hit the brakes on AI rollouts

More than 1,100 technology luminaries, leaders, and scientists have issued a warning against labs performing large-scale experiments with artificial intelligence (AI) more powerful than ChatGPT, saying the technology poses a grave threat to humanity.

In an open letter published by Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit organization with the mission to reduce global catastrophic and existential risks to humanity, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk joined other signatories in agreeing AI poses “profound risks to society and humanity, as shown by extensive research and acknowledged by top AI labs.”

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Legislation to rein in AI’s use in hiring grows

Organizations are rapidly adopting the use of artificial intelligence (AI) for the discovery, screening, interviewing, and hiring of candidates. It can reduce time and work needed to find job candidates and it can more accurately match applicant skills to a job opening.

But legislators and other lawmakers are concerned that using AI-based tools to discover and vet talent could intrude on job seekers’ privacy and may introduce racial- and gender-based biases already baked into the software.

“We have seen a substantial groundswell over the past two to three years with regard to legislation and regulatory rule-making as it relates to the use of AI in various facets of the workplace,” said Samantha Grant, a partner with the law firm of Reed Smith. 

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Tech big wigs: Hit the brakes on AI rollouts

More than 1,100 technology luminaries, leaders and scientists have issued a warning against labs performing large-scale experiments with artificial intelligence (AI) more powerful than ChatGPT, saying the technology poses a grave threat to humanity.

In an open letter published by The Future of Life Institute, a nonprofit organization that aims is to reduce global catastrophic and existential risks to humanity, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, and MIT Future of Life Institute President Max Tegmark joined other signatories in saying AI poses “profound risks to society and humanity, as shown by extensive research and acknowledged by top AI labs.”

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ACLU, public defenders push back against Google giving police your mobile data

The ACLU and eight federal public defenders are asking the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals to exclude mobile device location data obtained from Google via a so-called geofence warrant that helped law enforcement catch a bank robbery suspect.

The first geofence civil rights case to reach a federal court of appeals raises serious Fourth Amendment concerns against unreasonable search and seizure related to the location and personal information of mobile device users.

Geofence warrants have primarily been issued for Google to hand over data about every cell phone or other mobile device within a specific geographical region and timeframe. The problem: location data on every person carrying a mobile device in that area is scooped up in a wide net and their data is then handed over en masse to law enforcement.

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Would a US digital dollar let the government track you?

US legislators continue to press for the creation of a digital dollar, raising questions about whether the move could make it easy for the federal government to track business and consumer transactions.

Putting all the digital dollars on one electronic ledger operated by the Federal Reserve would also be a tempting target for cyber criminals.

In March, lawmakers introduced a bill that would allow the US Treasury to create a digital dollar and pilot it to determine its viability. That same month, President Joe Biden called for more research on developing a national digital currency through the nation’s central bank. The order highlighted the need for more regulatory oversight of cryptocurrencies, which have been used for nefarious purposes such as money laundering and other criminal activities.

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