Tesla and SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, has sounded a stern warning about artificial intelligence and superhuman intelligence. In a video interview with Chris Paine, the American billionaire mentioned that AI and super-intelligence could impact the world negatively. ayokinews.com reports
Musk was particularly concerned about the innovation birthing a framework that will control the world. He also mentioned that if a company or group of people succeed in developing godlike digital super-intelligence, then they could control the world by virtue of their superhuman strength.
In the past few years, there have been talks about using AI to develop an evil dictator that can distinguish innocent humans from evil humans. The AI will also be able to exterminate evil humans. Musk stressed that humans can die where there is an AI evil dictator. However, AI and Robots cannot die. In that case, we would have “an evil dictator from which we can never escape”.
AI vs Humans:
Chris Paine’s documentary features a number of applications of AI while referencing movies like “The Matrix” and “Ex Machina”.
AI machines have the potential to outdo humans as we have seen in the past. About four years ago, Lee Se-dol, a champion of the Go board game was defeated by an AI program. Earlier on in 1997, Garry Kasparov, a chess champion was floored in the game by a computer.
According to Musk, the DeepMind system can defeat human opponents in any gaming contest. More so, the system functions at a higher speed and greater efficiency than humans. Musk also believes that the AI system does not need to be evil to destroy humanity. He said; “If AI has a goal and humanity just happens to be in the way, it will destroy humanity as a matter of course without even thinking about it”.
He further backed this point using the example of a road construction project and an ant hill. If we’re building a road, and an ant hill is on the track, the ant hill will be destroyed for the project to be accomplished. In a similar way, AI may need to get rid of humans at some point to achieve its goals.
Elon Musk is of the opinion that humans should merge with AI in order to remain relevant. He currently runs a startup called Neuralink, with the goal of synchronizing the human brain with a computer.
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