Elon Musk Just Called A.I. the 'Greatest Risk We Face as a Civilization'
Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk has been a longtime proponent of artificial intelligence, saying it has applications that far exceed his autonomous car projects. But he’s also issued numerous warnings, stating that it must be handled safely and responsibly. Now he’s heralding it as a humankind’s great destructor.
Speaking Saturday at the National Governors Association in Rhode Island, Musk told the crowd A.I. is a “fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.” Urging the gathering to implement effective governmental regulation to ensure public safety. “Right now the government doesn’t even have insight,” Musk said. “Once there is awareness people will be extremely afraid, as they should be.”
Tesla isn’t the only automaker to have made significant advancements in the technology. Ford Motor Co. has spent a fortune on it’s own A.I. development, via the purchase of A.I. startups, and other automakers have begun doing the same. It’s quickly becoming a race to see who can design the most complex and comprehensive system.
“That’s where you need the regulators to come in and say, hey guys, you all need to just pause and make sure this is safe,” Musk told the audience. “You kind of need the regulators to do that for all the teams in the game. Otherwise the shareholders will be saying, why aren’t you developing A.I. faster? Because your competitor is.”
“On the artificial intelligence front, I have access to the very most cutting edge A.I., and I think people should be really concerned about it.”
While Musk’s concerns could be a good way to level the playing field for autonomous development, he also appears to possess a genuine concern for the safe implementation of artificial intelligence. His greatest fears revolve around hypothetical A.I. systems that could manipulate data online, falsify email accounts, and potentially start a war by feeding bunk data to the military. However, he also mentioned that A.I. systems would eventually give robots the ability to replace humans in almost every job currently available to them. It would begin with autonomous vehicles replacing drivers and continue from there.
In addition to frightening the crowd with a doomsday scenario of sentient-robots, Musk also elaborated on how the automotive industry would be shaped by self-driving cars and new companies with abnormal business models — hinting that some states should revisit dealership laws that ban the direct sale of his company’s cars to consumers. But it was his discussion on artificial intelligence that likely stuck with the attendees.
“I’m against overregulation for sure,” Musk said, “But man, I think we’ve got to get on that with A.I., pronto.”
[Image: OnInnovation/ Flickr ( CC BY 2.0)] [Source: The Wall Street Journal]
A staunch consumer advocate tracking industry trends and regulation. Before joining TTAC, Matt spent a decade working for marketing and research firms based in NYC. Clients included several of the world’s largest automakers, global tire brands, and aftermarket part suppliers. Dissatisfied with the corporate world and resentful of having to wear suits everyday, he pivoted to writing about cars. Since then, that man has become an ardent supporter of the right-to-repair movement, been interviewed on the auto industry by national radio broadcasts, driven more rental cars than anyone ever should, participated in amateur rallying events, and received the requisite minimum training as sanctioned by the SCCA. Handy with a wrench, Matt grew up surrounded by Detroit auto workers and managed to get a pizza delivery job before he was legally eligible. He later found himself driving box trucks through Manhattan, guaranteeing future sympathy for actual truckers. He continues to conduct research pertaining to the automotive sector as an independent contractor and has since moved back to his native Michigan, closer to where the cars are born. A contrarian, Matt claims to prefer understeer — stating that front and all-wheel drive vehicles cater best to his driving style.
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Civilization is doomed? Things must not be going well inside Tesla
Terrorist want to come and kill you = fearmongering Skynet/cylons/Hal9000 is going to kill you = legit concern. Do I pretty much have it? I think AI may cause issues via encroaching on jobs people get paid for now or some scenario where automatic trading or something crashes the economy but this sort of stuff is idiotic.