Former Google CEO Warns That AI Is About to Escape Human Control

"People do not understand what happens when you have intelligence at this level."

Jail Breaker

Artificial intelligence keeps getting smarter — and soon, warns former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, it won't take orders from us anymore.

During a talk at a recent summit co-hosted by Schmidt's think tank, the Special Competitive Studies Project, the former Google head predicted that within "three to five years," researchers will crack the case on so-called artificial general intelligence, or human-level AI.

After that, Schmidt suggested, all bets are off.

Once AI begins to self-improve and learn how to plan, the tech policy mogul said, it essentially won't "have to listen to us anymore." At that stage, he continued, AI will not only be smarter than humans,  but will also reach what is known as artificial superintelligence (ASI), which occurs when AI becomes smarter than all humans put together.

Per the "San Francisco consensus," a joking term Schmidt said he uses to refer to things that are only believed by people who live in the city by the bay, ASI will occur "within six years, just based on scaling."

If that sounds incomprehensible, you're not alone.

"This path is not understood in our society," Schmidt said. "There's no language for what happens with the arrival of this... that's why it's under-hyped."

Doom and Gloom

Unlike the AI doomer cohort, who not only believe that ASI is rapidly approaching but are also bent on stopping it, the ex-Google CEO seemed very stoic when discussing the potential arrival of AI that is smarter than organic humans could ever be.

"People do not understand what happens when you have intelligence at this level, which is largely free," Schmidt claimed.

(That conceit, it's worth noting, doesn't make necessarily hold up. Whoever reaches AGI first will guard it so strongly, Fort Knox will look like a garden gate — and until and unless an ASI frees itself from the shackles of human control entirely and decides to make itself beneficial to humans, it will not be some sort of utopian virtual assistant.)

As Schmidt jokingly referenced, the six-year ASI timeline could well be a Silicon Valley mirage. Still, it's freaky to imagine AI not only reaching human-level intelligence but surpassing it anytime soon — and to hear it discussed so beatifically.

More on Schmidt predictions: Former Google CEO Tells Congress That 99 Percent of All Electricity Will Be Used to Power Superintelligent AI