‘Beyond an Emergency:’ Former Google Executive Warns that AI Threat Is ‘Bigger than Climate Change’

In a stark warning, Mo Gawdat, a former chief business officer at Google X, has declared that the rapid development of AI poses a greater emergency than climate change — once the ultimate sacred cow of Silicon Valley leftists.

Business Insider reports that former Google X Chief Business Officer Mo Gawdat has issued a stern warning, saying that the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence poses a greater emergency than climate change.

During an episode of The Diary of a CEO podcast with Steven Bartlett, Gawdat expressed his worries regarding the potential disruption that AI could bring about within the next two years. “The likelihood of something incredibly disruptive happening within the next two years that can affect the entire planet is definitely larger with AI than it is with climate change,” Gawdat said.

Gawdat, who previously oversaw Google’s ambitious “moonshot” projects, voiced his concerns about how AI will affect the employment landscape. He warned that unrestrained development of AI technologies could lead to “mass job losses.” Breitbart News recently reported that Mike Rowe believes the biggest threat is to white-collar jobs:

Entrepreneur reports that despite widespread concerns about job losses due to technological advancements, Mike Rowe, the host of the popular TV shows Dirty Jobs and How America Works, has said that he’s confident that blue-collar jobs are safe from the ongoing growth of artificial intelligence.

Rowe recently expressed his opinion during an interview on The Big Money Show that the growth of AI in the workplace will not jeopardize blue-collar jobs. He argued that these roles require particular skill sets that are difficult to replicate digitally. “People used to say that the robots are going to destroy skilled labor. Well, not really,” Rowe said. “I haven’t seen any plumbing robots. I haven’t seen any electrician robots. And I don’t think we’re going to see any artificial intelligence in the skilled trades to that degree.”

“It is beyond an emergency,” Gawdat told Bartlett. “It’s the biggest thing we need to do today. It’s bigger than climate change believe it or not.”

Gawdat urged national governments all over the world to intervene and regulate the AI industry in response to these potential dangers. He put forth a radical idea: taxing companies using AI at an astounding 98 percent rate. According to him, doing so would both slow down the rapid development of AI and raise money to help those whose jobs AI might threaten.

“I have a very clear call for action for governments. 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,” Gawdat explained.

Gawdat’s remarks reaffirm the ideas presented in an open letter signed by prominent members of the AI industry, including Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, and Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple. The letter, which was released in March, demanded a six-month moratorium on the creation of AI advancements stronger than OpenAI’s GPT-4. It issued a warning about an “out-of-control race to develop and deploy” new AI technologies that could put civilization at risk.

Read more at Business Insider here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan