Twitter and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, while speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai, acknowledged that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has advanced, but warned that it poses a huge risk to civilization.
He said, “One of the biggest risks to the future of civilization is AI. It’s both positive and negative and has great promise and great capability. But it comes with great danger”.
Musk further disclosed that AI safety needs to be regulated because he feels it poses a bigger risk to society than cars, planes or medicine. In his words, “regulation may show but I think that might also be a good thing”.
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The Forbes rated billionaire whose ventures include electric car maker Tesla and space firm SpaceX, while in an interview with The New York Times stated that current trends suggest AI could overtake humans by 2025. Musk, who has reportedly for a long time warned about the dangers of AI advancement, had earlier stated it is far more dangerous than nuclear weapons.
In 2021, Musk stated that with the robust AI systems is a more significant mistake that can result in threatening conditions for humanity. He believes that artificial intelligence can evoke the next world war and result in dominating the world, noting that robot leadership is a threat to the world.
He believes that development of AI should be done with improved regulations and controlling structure. Musk wants AI to be controlled and structured even for his own brand Tesla. He considers AI as the scariest problem, and had regularly cautioned that AI will rapidly become as clever as humans and once it does, humankind’s existence will be at stake.
It is also interesting to note that Musk is a co-founder of OpenAI, the U.S. startup that developed ChatGPT, a so-called generative AI tool which returns human-like responses to user prompts. Reports reveal that part of the reason for Musk’s decision to establish OpenAI was because Google was not paying enough attention to AI safety.
Elon Musk has had a long relationship with OpenAI, dating back to the organization’s founding in 2015. He was one of the original backers of the organization, providing both financial and strategic support. Over the years, he has remained an advocate for the organization and its mission to promote and develop friendly AI.
The Tesla billionaire resigned from OpenAI’s board of directors in 2018, citing possible conflicts of interest because of Tesla’s own A.I. work.
