Ex-Google CEO says 2024 elections ‘will be a mess’ because of AI and misinformation

Former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt on Monday predicted major problems during the current election cycle because sites like Facebook and Twitter are not cracking down on inaccurate or misleading content generated by advanced artificial intelligence tools.

“The 2024 elections are going to be a mess because social media is not protecting us from false generated AI,” Schmidt told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “They’re working on it, but they haven’t solved it yet. And in fact, the trust and safety groups are getting made smaller, not larger.”

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The tech billionaire has long warned of the unintended consequences that could come as AI continues its rapid development, and said during the interview that “the short-term danger is misinformation.”

Schmidt, who served as Google’s CEO from 2001 to 2011 and subsequently worked as executive chairman of parent company Alphabet until 2018, was asked about Google-owned YouTube’s announcement earlier this month that it would “stop removing content that advances false claims that widespread fraud, errors, or glitches occurred in the 2020 elections” because doing so could “have the unintended effect of curtailing free speech.” 

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In reaction, Schmidt said social media should allow “free speech for humans, not computers.”

“What social media should do is mark all the content, know who the users are, and hold people accountable if they violate the law,” Schmidt said. “It doesn’t solve the problem of, you and I disagree on facts, but at least it establishes a basis that these are humans who are making these claims.”