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Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said he sees “existential risks” with artificial intelligence as the technology gets more advanced.

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Artificial intelligence could pose existential risks and governments need to know how to make sure the technology is not “misused by evil people,” former Google CEO Eric Schmidt warned Wednesday.

The future of AI has been thrust into the center of conversations among technologists and policymakers grappling with what the technology looks like going forward and how it should be regulated.

ChatGPT, the chatbot that went viral last year, has arguably sparked more awareness of artificial intelligence as major firms around the world look to launch rival products and talk up their AI capabilities.

Speaking at The Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council Summit in London, Schmidt said his concern is that AI is an “existential risk.”

“And existential risk is defined as many, many, many, many people harmed or killed,” Schmidt said.

“There are scenarios not today, but reasonably soon, where these systems will be able to find zero-day exploits in cyber issues, or discover new kinds of biology. Now, this is fiction today, but its reasoning is likely to be true. And when that happens, we want to be ready to know how to make sure these things are not misused by evil people.”

Zero-day exploits are security vulnerabilities found by hackers in software and systems.

Schmidt, who was CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011, did not have a clear view on how AI should be regulated but said that it is a “broader question for society.” However, he said there is unlikely to be a new regulatory agency set up in the U.S. dedicated to regulating AI.

Schmidt is not the first major technology figure to warn about the risks of AI.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI which developed ChatGPT, admitted in March that he is a “little bit scared” of artificial intelligence. He said he worries about authoritarian governments developing the technology,

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in the past that he thinks AI represents one of the “biggest risks” to civilization.

Even current Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, who recently oversaw the company’s launch of its own chatbot called Bard AI, said the technology will “impact every product across every company,” adding society needs to prepare for the changes.  

Schmidt was part of the National Security Commission on AI in the U.S. which in 2019 began a review of the technology, including a potential regulatory framework. The commission published its review in 2021, warning that the U.S. was underprepared for the age of AI.

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Fintech stocks plummet as Wall Street worries about consumer spending, credit

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Fintech stocks plummet as Wall Street worries about consumer spending, credit

People wait in line for t-shirts at a pop-up kiosk for the online brokerage Robinhood along Wall Street after the company went public with an IPO earlier in the day on July 29, 2021 in New York City.

Spencer Platt | Getty Images

It was a bad day for tech stocks, and a brutal one for fintech.

As the Nasdaq suffered its steepest decline since 2022, some of the biggest losers were companies that sit at the intersection of Wall Street and Silicon Valley.

Stock trading app Robinhood tumbled 20%, bitcoin holder Strategy fell 17% and crypto exchange Coinbase lost 18%. Much of the slide in those three stocks was tied to the drop in bitcoin, which fell almost 5%, continuing its downward trajectory. The price of the leading cryptocurrency is now down 19% in the past month, falling after a big-post election pop in late 2024.

Beyond the crypto trade, online lenders and payments companies also fell more than the broader market. Affirm, which popularized buy now, pay later loans, dropped 11%, as did SoFi, which offers personal loans and mortgages. Shopify, which provides payment technology to online retailers, fell more than 7%.

JPMorgan Chase fintech analysts on Monday highlighted declining consumer confidence as a potential challenge for companies that rely on consumer spending for growth. In late February, the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index slipped to 98.3 for the month, down nearly 7%, the largest monthly drop since August 2021. Walmart recently reported a shift away from discretionary purchases, underscoring the potential trouble.

“Our universe has modestly outperformed the S&P 500 since the election, but sentiment has soured of late on declining consumer confidence and signs of slowing discretionary spend,” the JPMorgan analysts wrote.

The fintech selloff follows a strong rally in the fourth quarter, driven by Fed rate cut expectations and hopes for a more favorable regulatory environment under the Trump administration.

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Oracle misses on earnings but touts data center growth from AI

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Oracle misses on earnings but touts data center growth from AI

Larry Ellison, chairman and co-founder of Oracle Corp., speaks during the Oracle OpenWorld 2017 conference in San Francisco on Oct. 1, 2017.

David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Oracle issued quarterly results on Monday that trailed analysts’ estimates, but the company offered bullish comments on its cloud infrastructure segment.

Here is how Oracle did compared to LSEG consensus:

  • Earnings per share: $1.47 adjusted vs. $1.49 expected
  • Revenue: $14.13 billion vs. $14.39 billion expected

Revenue increased 6% from $13.3 billion in the same period last year. Net income rose 22% to $2.94 billion, or $1.02 a share, from $2.4 billion, or 85 cents a share, a year earlier. Revenue in Oracle’s cloud services business jumped 10% from a year earlier to $11.01 billion, accounting for 78% of total sales.

The company’s cloud infrastructure segment, which helps businesses move workloads out of their own data centers, has been booming due to demand for computing power that can support artificial intelligence projects. Oracle said revenue in its cloud infrastructure unit increased 49% from a year earlier to $2.7 billion.

“We are on schedule to double our data center capacity this calendar year,” Oracle Chair Larry Ellison said in a release. “Customer demand is at record levels.”

In January, President Donald Trump announced plans to invest billions of dollars in AI infrastructure in the U.S. in collaboration with Oracle, OpenAI and SoftBank. The first initiative of the joint venture, called Stargate, will be to construct data centers in Texas — an effort that is already underway, Ellison said during the announcement at the White House.

Oracle’s cloud and on-premises licenses business contributed $1.1 billion in revenue during the quarter, down 10% year over year.

Oracle also said it is increasing its quarterly dividend to 50 cents a share from 40 cents.

As of Monday’s close, the stock is down almost 11% year to date.

Oracle will hold its quarterly call with investors and will share its outlook at 5 p.m. ET.

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Asana CEO Dustin Moskovitz announces retirement, stock plummets 25%

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Asana CEO Dustin Moskovitz announces retirement, stock plummets 25%

Asana CEO and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz

PATRICIA DE MELO MOREIRA | AFP | Getty Images

Dustin Moskovitz, the CEO of Asana and one of the original founders of Facebook, is retiring from the software company he started in 2008.

Asana announced Moskovitz’s retirement on Monday as part of the company’s fiscal fourth-quarter earnings report, and its board has retained an executive search firm to help choose a new CEO. Moskovitz notified its board “of his intention to transition to the role of Chair when a new CEO begins,” the company said Monday.

“As I reflect on my journey since co-founding Asana nearly 17 years ago, I’m filled with immense gratitude,” Moskovitz said in a statement. “Creating and leading Asana has been more than just building a company — it’s been a profound privilege to work alongside some of the most talented minds in the industry.”

Asana said fourth-quarter sales rose 10% year-over-year to $188.3 million, which was in-line with analyst estimates.

The company said its fourth-quarter adjusted earnings per share was breakeven, ahead of analyst estimates of a loss of one cent per share.

Asana said it expects fiscal first-quarter revenue of $184.5 million to $186.5 million, trailing analyst expectations of $191 million.

Asana’s stock price was down more than 25% in after-hours trading Monday.

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