Key Takeaways
- Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in an interview with CNBC that there has to be AI regulation.
- He specifically pointed to instances of AI models becoming “suicide coaches” for kids as a clear indicator that something needs to be done.
- Benioff’s remarks fly in the face of a tech industry that views regulation as a four-letter word.
Marc Benioff is speaking out about AI, with the Salesforce CEO saying in an interview that “there has to be some regulation” in regard to the world-changing technology.
AI has been evolving at break-neck speeds over the last few years, with a seemingly endless supply of funding from the big tech firms of the world. As a result, some unsettling use cases have arisen, largely due to a lack of regulation.
Hopefully that changes soon, though, with even the head of the largest CRM in the world — with a vast selection of AI features to boot — calling for it to be regulated more substantially.
Benioff: There Has to Be Some Regulation
In an interview with CNBC, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff spoke about the importance of AI regulation, noting that the technology could quick get out of hand without some intervention.
“It can’t just be growth at any cost. There has to be some regulation.” – Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce
Benioff pointed to some of the more egregious AI errors as a reason for the government to get involved, like AI models that are coaching children on how to die by suicide.
AI: The Next Social Media
In the interview, Benioff made an apt comparison between the current lack of regulation of AI to a similar refusal to slow down social media innovation when it was taking off. And as we know, that didn’t go very well in the long run.
“Bad things were happening all over the world because social media was fully unregulated, and now you’re kind of seeing that play out again with artificial intelligence.” – Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce
Suffice to say, AI is having a similar impact on the world that social media did. People are dumber, scams are rampant, and the only people having a good time are the ones running these companies.
AI Dangers Are Still Too Common
While businesses around the world are trying to get on board with AI in any way they can, the reality is that AI isn’t moving the needle. For one, return-on-investment just isn’t happening for many businesses.
On top of that, though, the errors it makes are quite substantial. One company saw its entire database deleted by its AI model, with even the model itself admitting that the move was a “catastrophic failure.”
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Suffice to say, this technology clearly needs to be regulated before any more catastrophes, even if it’s at the expense of high-speed innovation.
