Microsoft economist warns of A.I. election interference from 'bad actors'

LTC Eugene Chu
..."People should worry more about "AI being used by bad actors" than they should about AI productivity outpacing human productivity, Microsoft chief economist Michael Schwarz said at a World Economic Forum event Wednesday.

"Before AI could take all your jobs, it could certainly do a lot of damage in the hands of spammers, people who want to manipulate elections," Schwarz added while speaking on a panel on harnessing generative AI.

Microsoft first invested $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019, years before the two companies would integrate OpenAI's GPT large language model into Microsoft's Bing search product. In January, Microsoft announced a new multiyear multibillion-dollar investment in the company. OpenAI relies on Microsoft to provide the computing heft that powers OpenAI's products, a relationship that Wells Fargo recently said could result in up to $30 billion in new annual revenue for Microsoft.

Schwarz tempered his caution about AI by noting that all new technologies, even cars, carried a degree of risk when they first came to market. "When AI makes us more productive, we as mankind ought to be better off," he noted, "because we are able to produce more stuff.""...