Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff to governments across the world: Don’t make these ‘suicide mistake’ everyone did with Facebook, Instagram and other social media platforms
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has now urged the governments across the world to impose stronger regulation on artificial intelligence. Benioff warned that the technology risks repeating the same mistakes made with unregulated social media platforms. Speaking to CNBC’s Sarah Eisen at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Benioff said AI has already shown disturbing consequences. “This year, you really saw something pretty horrific, which is these AI models became suicide coaches,” Benioff said, pointing to documented cases of self-harm linked to AI interactions.The latest remarks made by Benioff echoed his earlier warnings around social media. Back in 2018, the Salesforce CEO compared social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram to cigarette, calling them addictive and harmful. “Bad things were happening all over the world because social media was fully unregulated,” he said Tuesday. “And now you’re kind of seeing that play out again with artificial intelligence.”
AI regulations in the US
AI regulations in the US still remain fragmented. In the absence of federal guardrails, states have begun enacting their own laws:
- California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed bills in October addressing child safety concerns around AI and social media.
- New York Gov. Kathy Hochul passed the Responsible AI Safety and Education Act in December, imposing transparency and safety requirements on large AI developers.
Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump has pushed back against what he called “excessive State regulation,” signing an executive order in December to block such efforts. The order argued that U.S. AI companies must remain free to innovate without “cumbersome regulation.”
Salesforce CEO criticise section 230 debate
Benioff also strongly criticised the section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The particular act provide shield to tech companies from the liability of over-generated content. “It’s funny, tech companies, they hate regulation. They hate it, except for one. They love Section 230,” Benioff said. “So if this large language model coaches this child into suicide, they’re not responsible because of Section 230. That’s probably something that needs to get reshaped, shifted, changed.”Both Republicans and Democrats have raised concerns about Section 230, though consensus on reform remains elusive. Benioff concluded with the thought “There’s a lot of families that, unfortunately, have suffered this year, and I don’t think they had to.”
