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Elon Musk Takes a Fatalistic View Toward AI (youtube.com)
Elon Musk sat down with California comedian Joe Rogan on Thursday evening for a 2 1/2-hour podcast [YouTube video] that touched upon everything from flamethrowers and artificial intelligence to the end of the universe. Talking about AI, a subject Musk has long been very vocal about, he said artificial intelligence could turn out to be terrible or it could end up being great, but one thing that is certain is that it will be beyond human's control. From a report: "You kind of have to be optimistic about the future. There's no point in being pessimistic," said the head of Tesla and SpaceX. "I rather be optimistic and wrong, than pessimistic and right. [...] It's not necessarily bad, but it's going to be outside of human control. It's going to be very tempting to use AI as a weapon, said Musk. "It will be used as a weapon. The on ramp to serious AI will be more humans using it against eachother. That will be the danger."
Musk says he has tried to convince people to slow down where AI is concerned and regulate it, but nobody listened. "The way that regulation works is slow. Usually there will be some new technology that will cause damage or death, there will be an outcry, there will be an investigation," said the Tesla CEO. "Years will pass, there will be some insight committee, then rule making and oversight and eventually regulations. This all takes many years. This is the normal course of things." Musk used the example that it took ten years for seatbelts to become required, even though the number of deaths were obvious. He says this time frame doesn't work for AI. "We can't wait ten years to the point where something is dangerous to do something about AI. It will be too late," said Musk.
Musk says he has tried to convince people to slow down where AI is concerned and regulate it, but nobody listened. "The way that regulation works is slow. Usually there will be some new technology that will cause damage or death, there will be an outcry, there will be an investigation," said the Tesla CEO. "Years will pass, there will be some insight committee, then rule making and oversight and eventually regulations. This all takes many years. This is the normal course of things." Musk used the example that it took ten years for seatbelts to become required, even though the number of deaths were obvious. He says this time frame doesn't work for AI. "We can't wait ten years to the point where something is dangerous to do something about AI. It will be too late," said Musk.
But he's a billionaire so it's called "eccentric". Sort of like Elizabeth Holmes and her fraud.
And he apparently smoked pot during the interview...
The newswires are all ablaze right now about Musk smoking pot in public(*), noting that the stock is down 5% in pre-market trading, and sure enough the stock is down 16 points today.
I admit that seems pretty stupid on his part.
(*) Which is apparently legal in the time and place where he did it, but still...
If you think that intelligence is based in material objects (no spirits and ghosts etc.) and if you think that evolution is a natural and unstoppable process "built into" any "materialistic", physical universe, than the conclusion can only be: Humans are just one step on the ladder of biological evolution, and very probably the last biological one. The next step will be "artificial" intelligence, evolving itself faster than we ever could, designing its material basis according to its needs (e.g., being a submarine, a space ship, a robot for different worlds out there to survive under conditions no human could ever survive etc.). It would not have to start to learn from the beginning, it would not have to carry its "biossphere" around with itself, it would be able to use any kind of energy source, not just "eatable" stuff etc. Why should modern humans be anything different than any earlier species in the evolution like Homo erectus or Neanderthals?
wake me when we ever come up with something we call AI that deserves the name
I think the point is that it will be too late to debate strong AI once strong AI exists. This is not like other technologies that we invent and then get to debate the social consequences over next several decades. No one may be around to wake you up. . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Can someone please explain to me why artificial intelligence is supposedly somehow any more terrifying than natural intelligence already is when the latter is applied to nefarious ends, and why it should ever be assumed that any general purpose AI would be somehow likely to have an agenda that we would actually consider to be corrupt or wrong?
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'