Chess legend Garry Kasparov: Humans are more dangerous than artificial intelligence

 Chess legend Garry Kasparov, who beat the Deep Blue computer that paves the way for artificial intelligence technologies before the machine defeated him, expresses his concern about the abuses of the digital giants in terms of protecting privacy, stressing in an interview with Agence France-Presse that human violations are more serious than artificial intelligence techniques.

The Russian chess master, retired since 2005, recently collected in a book published by Avast, the cybersecurity company for which he is an ambassador, stories spanning more than five years about the fragile balance between continuous technical innovation and respect for freedoms in the age of digital technology.

In light of the growing intrusion of artificial intelligence into our daily lives, the danger of spreading misinformation and the threat to privacy due to the expanding relationship between man and machine, Kasparov, during his participation in the Web Summit in Portugal, calls for a “serious public debate in the free world” to issue “recommendations for different governments In order to overcome these new challenges.

"Governments are the ones who make the necessary laws to compel companies to do what is necessary to limit the damage," Kasparov told AFP on the sidelines of the mega European Digital Forum in Lisbon.

He pointed out that "the problem is that members of the public do not yet have a clear idea of ​​the direction we are taking, because governments consider major technologies as a source of income," criticizing the growing spread of false news.

A call for "transparency"

While Facebook is facing accusations of prioritizing its financial profits at the expense of users' interests or the requirements to combat disinformation since the recent leaks on the network, Garry Kasparov calls for the "accountability" of the Internet giants.

"The problem with Facebook or Twitter is the complete lack of transparency about how their companies are run," he says.

And the 58-year-old human rights activist based in the United States adds, "The basis of the solution, in my opinion, is supervision. If we force them to be transparent, then we will understand how they work and we will be able to address the many violations.

But questions are raised about the effectiveness of supervision measures over the digital sector despite several initiatives, including from the Federation. The European Union with the Data Protection Act or the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act.

Kasparov says that these laws adopted in Europe or the United States "do not pay any attention to Chinese companies or the Russian government," adding, "The world is divided between a free world and a non-free world."

"Unfortunately, the non-free world is larger...it represents 60% (of the world's total) if we consider India as a democracy. If we start questioning India's situation, the numbers will be even worse."

artificial intelligence dangers

In addition to being considered the best chess player in the history of chess, Kasparov was also famous for his confrontations with the IBM-developed "Deep Blue" supercomputer, which was the first step in artificial intelligence at the end of the nineties of the last century.

After defeating "Deep Blue" in 1996, the Russian champion lost in the revenge confrontation the following year. This was the machine's first victory over human intelligence during a game.

Since then, technology has progressed so rapidly that it has raised an equal amount of promise and fear on both the economic and social fronts.

"It will undoubtedly be painful. I don't want to seem insensitive, but there are people who will lose their jobs. The situation must be looked at from a comprehensive perspective: humanity always wins from new technologies," Kasparov told AFP, citing the development of anti-Corona vaccines very quickly.

He asserts that "new AI technologies, as they become more complex, may be used to help make the human-machine relationship much more efficient."

"In principle, these machines will make us smarter," he adds.

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