AI could trigger social order collapse, warns tech giant

ARTIFICIAL intelligence could lead to the collapse of social order and trigger wars, two of Japan’s biggest companies have claimed.

In a warning, technology giant NTT and Yomiuri Shimbun, the publisher of one of Japan’s leading newspapers, said “trust in society as a whole may be damaged” by inaccurate or biased AI tools.

The companies said: “There is a concern that, in the worst-case scenario, democracy and social order could collapse, resulting in wars.”

They said current AI chatbots suffered from an issue known as “hallucination”, where the bots make up facts, adding that they often “lie with confidence”. AI bots could be used to spread “malicious information” that could “cause social unrest”.

They called for “rigid restrictions by law” on AI programmes and companies, including legislation for areas of the highest risk, such as around elections and protecting national security.

NTT is Japan’s biggest telecoms company, formerly the state monopoly, while Yomiuri Shimbun is the country’s most widely circulated newspaper with 6m daily readers.

The warning follows a crackdown by the EU on AI companies, while the US, UK and Japan have all set up research institutes aimed at monitoring AI for risks. A new wave of AI tools has been developed by US labs, including Openai, Google Deepmind and Anthropic. Some experts have raised warnings over the risks posed by AI.

Last year, thousands of entrepreneurs and scientists called for a six- month moratorium on the development of more powerful AI machines over fears they posed a “profound risk to humanity”.

However, these claims have divided researchers, with others say the threat is overblown. So far, the AI bots have largely been used for writing emails, summarising reports or creating pictures, but are often prone to errors.

Some AI experts have suggested the fears could lead to tough regulations that would benefit the US labs – known as regulatory capture.

However, the Japanese companies said without any new laws, there could be “enormous and irreversible damage as the effects of the technology will not be controllable in society”.

‘There may be enormous damage as the effects of the technology will not be controllable in society’