Elon Musk believes that artificial intelligence could eventually put everyone out of a job.
The billionaire and tech leader, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, executive chairman of X (formerly known as Twitter) and owner of newly formed artificial intelligence startup xAI, said on Thursday that artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to become “the biggest disruptive force in history”.
“We’re going to have something that’s smarter than the smartest man for the first time,” Musk said at an event at Lancaster House, the official residence of the British government.
“It’s hard to say exactly when that will be, but we will get to a point where work will not be needed,” Musk continued, speaking alongside British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
“You can have a job if you want to have it for personal pleasure. But AI could do everything. I don’t know if people are comfortable or uncomfortable with that,” Musk joked.
“It will be like a magic genie, which grants you any wish and has no limits. There will be no limits to three wishes and similar nonsense, which is both good and bad. One of the challenges in the future will be how to find the meaning of life.”
Musk has repeatedly warned of the threat AI poses to humanity. He once said it could be more dangerous than nuclear weapons. He was one of many tech leaders who called for a pause in the development of AI beyond OpenAI’s GPT-4 software in a cited open letter published earlier this year.
Other tech leaders disagree, including Palantir chief Alex Karp. Speaking to BBC Radio in June, Karp said he felt “a lot of people who are looking for a break are looking for a break because they don’t have a product”.
Musk’s comments on Thursday followed the conclusion of animportant summit at Bletchley Park in England, where world leaders agreed on a global statement on AI that found common ground on the risks the technology poses to humanity.
Technologists and political leaders used the summit to warn of the existential threats posed by AI, focusing on some of the possible doomsday scenarios that could be shaped by the invention of a hypothetical superintelligence.
At the summit, the United States (U.S.) and China, the two countries most at odds over the technology, agreed to find a global consensus on how to tackle some of the more complex issues surrounding AI including how to safely develop and regulate it, Akta reports.
E.Dz.
