AI can help humanity solve the world's 'hard problems', claims Eric Schmidt

Google chairman believes AI can solve challenges like climate change and tech firms need to work together to make it happen

Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to help humanity solve some of the most difficult challenges it faces, Google chairman Eric Schmidt has claimed.

Schmidt made the comments at a conference in New York and, according to Bloomberg, told attendees that AI can help scientists to solve some of the world's "hard problems" such as population growth, climate change, development and education.

"AI will play this role to navigate through this and help us," Schmidt explained, referring to how artificial intelligence can help people understand links and patterns in data by being able to search through it and make connections much more quickly.

However, Schmidt also warned that artificial intelligence is only going to reach its true potential if Google and other technology firms examining the subject - such as Facebook - collaborate as one for the greater good.

"Every single advance has occurred because smart people got in a room and eventually they standardised approaches," he said. "The promise of this is so profound that we - Alphabet, Google, whatever our name is at the moment - are working incredibly hard to advance these platforms".

Schmidt suggested that the best way to get results out of this hard work would be for different organisations to work together as currently there is "a small set of people that understand collectively that when we put all this stuff together we can build platforms that can change the world".

The comments by Schmidt mirror those previously made by Dr Demis Hassabis, co-founder and CEO of DeepMind, the neuroscience-inspired AI company acquired by Google in January 2014, who described how artificial intelligence could help humanity in discovering advancements and benefits that may not otherwise be possible.

"We might have to come to the sobering realisation that even with the smartest set of humans on the planet working on these problems, these systems may be so complex, that it's difficult for individual humans and scientific experts to have the time they need in their lifetimes to even innovate and advance," he said.

"It's my belief we're going to need some assistance and I think AI is the solution to that," Dr Hassabis added.

Schmidt also touted the idea of personally benefiting from an AI assistant, describing how in the future there could be "Eric and Not-Eric" when "not-Eric is this digital thing that helps me".

But the Google chairman isn't the first head of a technology company who is keen on the idea of being assisted by artificial intelligence; Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg has announced plans to build his own AI to aid him at home and at work.