In the tech race for artificial intelligence (AI), Google boss Sundar Pichai has spoken out in favor of legal guidelines for the new technologies. In particular, he referred to the possibility of creating so-called deepfake videos in which real people can be portrayed in a deceptively real way. “There must be consequences for the production of deepfake videos that harm society,” Pichai emphasized in an interview broadcast on CBS’s “60 Minutes” show on Monday night.
Experts have long been warning of the danger of deception with the help of so-called generative artificial intelligence (AI), which can produce text, images or videos. Such concerns were recently reinforced, for example, by an artificially generated photo of the Pope and a series of images generated by AI of an alleged arrest of ex-US President Donald Trump.
Social rules necessary
The software generates its own content based on massive amounts of information that it has processed for training. With text, for example, programs like ChatGPT guess word for word how a sentence should continue. A consequence of the principle is currently that they can sometimes output completely incorrect information – without this being recognizable to the user. “Anyone who’s worked with AI for a while comes to the realization that it’s so different and so pervasive that we need societal rules to think about how to adapt,” Pichai said. One does not want to bring any technology into the public domain for which society is not prepared.
The current AI race among the big tech players was triggered by the release of ChatGPT by the start-up OpenAI at the end of last year. Google has been working on various software with artificial intelligence for years, but has repeatedly hesitated to make it publicly available, citing social responsibility. Meanwhile, a pact between OpenAI and Google’s rival Microsoft is putting the Internet giant under pressure. (dpa)
