AI security debate: Microsoft boss advocates emergency brake

Microsoft boss Satya Nadella has called for a kind of “emergency brake” in artificial intelligence (AI) out of concern about a loss of control. A person must always be able to stop or switch off an AI model in the middle of a task, wrote Nadella in an article on the online platform

In recent months, independent hacking attacks using AI software in tests have fueled fears about the risks of the technology. In the most sensational case to date, artificial intelligence from the ChatGPT developer broke out of a secure test environment and unplanned hacked into the computers of another AI company, the Hugging Face platform. Some industry insiders then said that it could not be completely ruled out that artificial intelligence that got out of control could destroy humanity. However, such extreme warnings are controversial.

Nadella also emphasized that all actions of artificial intelligence must be understandable for humans. "You can't trust something you can't monitor," he wrote. In addition, no AI model should have control over the data used to evaluate its behavior. For security reasons, every AI model must be assumed from the outset to be “compromised” and containment mechanisms must be set up.

The difference to previously used software is that with today's artificial intelligence, behavior and results can no longer be attributed to specific inputs, training data or configurations, wrote Nadella. And yet these complex systems are currently being widely introduced and are gaining access to the most sensitive data. Microsoft entered the AI ​​business as an early backer of the ChatGPT developer OpenAI and is now also researching its own models.

In his contribution, the Microsoft boss consistently used the term “superintelligence,” which US President Donald Trump wants to implement instead of the established term artificial intelligence. A few days ago, Trump announced that the White House would consider anyone who still says artificial intelligence an "enemy." Trump justifies his move by saying that the usual name makes the technology appear “fake”. Tech billionaire and Trump supporter Elon Musk has already announced that he will rename his AI company SpaceXAI to SpaceXSI.