The danger of artificial intelligence (AI) is that bad actors will use it and not that it will replace humans, Piers Linney has warned.
The former Dragons’ Den star was speaking at the AI for business SME & financial services workshop on 5 July 2023.
He observed the weakest the tool is ever going to be is today as it will grow in power exponentially.
Additionally, the transition to AI will not be “slow and a cyber arms race is coming”.
Linney said the advantage of adopting AI into a business is “generally we all suffer from bias, but AI allows you to make decision without it”.
The fear that AI will replace human roles is also curbed by regulation, Linney added, as regulation means you will always need humans in the job.
He said that bigger companies do not tend to stay on top of the latest tech trends, but AI is a topic the bigger firms have a focus on.
“Innovation curves are not over decades now but overnight”, Linney said but also warned that “there is a period of time where new tech is fighting the old”.
Linney also said he was speaking at the event as “no-one was explaining how to implement AI to SMEs”.
He believes “it is likely that the regulator will mess it up when looking to regulate AI”.
Linney’s comments come as Saxo, the online trading and investment specialist, has published its Q3 2023 Quarterly Outlook.
Saxo chief investment officer Steen Jakobsen sees the new technology having both a positive and negative impact on society.
Jakobsen, admitted there is “potential for generative AI to increase productivity over time”, but warned: “The market is getting ahead of itself in selecting winners, and current valuations are already discounting too much of the longer-term future gains to be had.”
Saxo cryptocurrency analyst Mads Eberhardt even compared AI to crypto.
He said: “[I can] see remarkable similarities between crypto and the recent rise of AI, including the seemingly one-way street of capital flowing to everything AI.”
Eberhardt added that retail investors will “continue turning their attention to AI, as they enjoy markets with greater risk/reward, similar to crypto and meme stocks, in which retail investors are highly dominant”.
OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said during an interview in January 2023 with StrictlyVC’s founder Connie Loizos that the best-case scenario for AI as he sees it is “so unbelievably good that it’s hard for me to even imagine”.
He added: “I can sort of imagine what it’s like when we have just, like, unbelievable abundance and systems that can help us resolve deadlocks and improve all aspects of reality and let us all live our best lives.”
However, in terms of the worst-case scenario he said: “The bad case — and I think this is important to say — is, like, lights out for all of us. I’m more worried about an accidental misuse case in the short term.
“So I think it’s like impossible to overstate the importance of AI safety and alignment work. I would like to see much, much more happening.”
