Slashdot Mirror
Elon Musk: The Danger of AI is Much Greater Than Nuclear Warheads. We Need Regulatory Oversight Of AI Development. (youtube.com)
Elon Musk has been vocal about the need for regulation for AI in the past. At SXSW on Sunday, Musk, 46, elaborated his thoughts. We're very close to seeing cutting edge technologies in AI, Musk said. "It scares the hell out of me," the Tesla and SpaceX showrunner said. He cited the example of AlphaGo and AlphaZero, and the rate of advancements they have shown to illustrate his point. He said: Alpha Zero can read the rules of any game and beat the human. For any game. Nobody expected that rate of improvement. If you ask those same experts who think AI is not progressing at the rate that I'm saying, I think you will find their betting average for things like Go and other AI advancements, is very weak. It's not good.
We will also see this with self driving. Probably by next year, self driving will encompass all forms of driving. By the end of next year, it will be at least 100 percent safer than humans. [...] The rate of improvements is really dramatic and we have to figure out some way to ensure that the advent of digital super intelligence is symbiotic with humanity. I think that's the single biggest existential crisis we face, and the most pressing one. I'm not generally an advocate of regulation -- I'm actually usually on the side of minimizing those things. But this is a case, where you have a very serious danger to the public. There needs to be a public body that has insight and oversight to ensure that everyone is developing AI safely. This is extremely important. The danger of AI is much greater than danger of nuclear warheads. By a lot.
We will also see this with self driving. Probably by next year, self driving will encompass all forms of driving. By the end of next year, it will be at least 100 percent safer than humans. [...] The rate of improvements is really dramatic and we have to figure out some way to ensure that the advent of digital super intelligence is symbiotic with humanity. I think that's the single biggest existential crisis we face, and the most pressing one. I'm not generally an advocate of regulation -- I'm actually usually on the side of minimizing those things. But this is a case, where you have a very serious danger to the public. There needs to be a public body that has insight and oversight to ensure that everyone is developing AI safely. This is extremely important. The danger of AI is much greater than danger of nuclear warheads. By a lot.
Musk has made it his business to repackage nascent technology as someone else's perceived dream and selling it to hapless investors. This seems like an attempt to force more AI researches to reveal their discoveries and rely on dysfunctional patent regime to protect them (instead of the stronger protection in the form of trade secrets). If researchers must give away their work for free, then it immediately becomes commoditized and the only people profiting from it will be those who repackage it. And that's exactly what he does.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
An AI need never be conscious in our sense of the word. But when it can do all the things that humans can do then it will no longer need us. The toughest thing will be to be able to program itself, i.e. to do AI research.
That is a good 50 .. 200 years off, but that in turn is nothing in terms of human evolution. But once it happens, humans will be obsolete technology.
So as worms became monkeys which became humans, we live on the cusp of the next evolutionary step -- the rise of robots and the end of biology.
Is this a good or bad thing? Is anything a good or a bad thing? Not really important because it will happen anyway.
You have a deep, rich fantasy life.
Have you considered writing short stories?
I bet Amazon would publish a collection of your work.