AI Could Lead To Third World War, Elon Musk Says (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader shares a report: Elon Musk has said again that artificial intelligence could be humanity's greatest existential threat, this time by starting a third world war. The prospect clearly weighs heavily on Musk's mind, since the SpaceX, Tesla and Boring Company chief tweeted at 2.33am Los Angeles time about how AI could led to the end of the world -- without the need for the singularity. His fears were prompted by a statement from Vladimir Putin that "artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind ... It comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world." Hashing out his thoughts in public, Musk clarified that he was not just concerned about the prospect of a world leader starting the war, but also of an overcautious AI deciding "that a [pre-emptive] strike is [the] most probable path to victory." Musk added, "Competition for AI superiority at national level most likely cause of WW3 in my opinion. [...] Govts don't need to follow normal laws. They will obtain AI developed by companies at gunpoint, if necessary."

Comments

I think I speak for everyone

[SensitiveMale]

Elon, shut the fuck up.

AI 2020!

[iamacat]

Tired of what we can accomplish with human intelligence! Consider artificial intelligence for 46th president of United States of America! Starting today, we are starting to train virtualDonaldTrump@ to predict the next tweet of realDonaldTrump@. At the point most can not tell the difference in a blind poll, we have achieved parity of automated governance with humans. And ours doesn't grab pussy!

Enough of this

[Tablizer]

If I wanted far-off pontifications from rich egotistical blowhards, I would have voted for Trump.

Strategic Level

[SeattleLawGuy]

I dunno. I see AI with decicion making powers happening at the tactical and theatre levels: semi autonomous weapons that are given a mission and the execute it with leeway to adjust along the way, or an AI coordinating troops and autonomous units. Enough options for a rogue AI to cause terrible damage, but not really something that will spark WW3 before humans can intervene.

At the strategic level, AI could well support decision making, but what would be the value of actually putting the AI in charge there? That makes sense only if you need to make split second decisions, or launch a counterstrike even if all meatbag commanders are dead. That's a cold war standoff scenario; I don't see it being really useful for anything else.

You're thinking of the incremental advances from current AI. That will certainly be leveraged, but eventually we will come up with general AI in a way which can be accomplished using available resources. That's decades away according to most people, but any country that develops it first can literally out-think the others in everything, unless they don't have enough lead time. Every government in the world would go to war for that power or to keep that power out of the hands of another.

NS is a more imminent threat.

[Thanatiel]

Natural Stupidity leading to World War seems fare more realistic and much closer.
Could we do something about our various imbeciles in power before we look at some hypothetical AI threat?
We've been plagued by these idiots for a while now and they are spreading.

Elon == Anti-VAXer?

[TiggertheMad]

Elon, shut the fuck up.

I'd have given you a +1 if I had any right now. I am a little sad that this post got modded down, because while it isn't lending much to the depth of the discussion here on /., it is probably what Elon needs to be told.

I have made posts about this before, but Elon is talented in running big businesses, not in AI research. At this point he is just approaching crank territory with his hysteric claims about the impending 'bot-pocalyps'. He is using his position of celebrity to promote theories that he has really no understanding of. (His degrees are physics and business)

He is rather similar to another 'beloved' celebrity idiot that likes to talk about nothing she has any authority to speak on: Remember Jenny McCarthy and Vacations? How is Elon really any different than Jenny? Neither are remotely qualified to speak authoritatively about their respective pet theories.

So, Elon, if you or any of your friends or flunkies happens on this post by chance, please take this message to heart: STFU and stick to talking about things that you know about.

Re:Stole the plot of WARGAMES

[gl4ss]

if it wasnt elon, I'd say it's a stretch.

by now I'm convinced that the guy is a hack. he doesn't know half the shit he talks about and does it mostly to keep his house of cards going on when he does it.

for him an invention is buying something and putting it on a product - then selling himself as the inventor. he would like to be tony stark, but he is so far off from that he doesn't understand the difference between AI and automation. seriously, he doesn't. he doesn't understand conceptually they are different things - for him and to the people he wants to sell to a lane follower is intelligence, not automation.