Elon Musk says AI is a 'fundamental risk to the existence of civilisation' and warns we must act NOW to stop it from wiping out humanity
By Associated Press and Harry Pettit
Daily Mail
July 17, 2017
Tesla CEO Elon Musk has warned that regulation of artificial intelligence is needed because it's a 'fundamental risk to the existence of human civilisation.'
The billionaire said regulations will stop humanity from being outsmarted by computers, or 'deep intelligence in the network', that can start wars by manipulating information.
Governments must have a better understanding of artificial intelligence technology's rapid evolution in order to fully comprehend the risks, he said.
'Once there is awareness, people will be extremely afraid, as they should be...By the time we are reactive in AI regulation, it'll be too late,' he added.
The billionaire made the comments during a question-and-answer session at the summer conference of the National Governors Association in Rhode Island.
'Normally the way regulations are set up is when a bunch of bad things happen, there's a public outcry, and after many years a regulatory agency is set up to regulate that industry,' said Musk.
'It takes forever. That, in the past, has been bad but not something which represented a fundamental risk to the existence of civilisation.'
Pressed for more specific guidance, Musk said the first step is for government to get a better understanding of the fast-moving achievements in developing artificial intelligence technology.
The Tesla and SpaceX founder was reiterating his long-held argument that it is needed soon to protect humanity from intelligent machines.
He has previously compared AI to 'summoning the devil'.
When asked at the 2016 Code Conference in California if the answer to the question of whether we are in a simulated computer game was 'yes', Musk said 'probably.'
Musk believes that computer game technology, particularly virtual reality, is already approaching a point that it is indistinguishable from reality.
'If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality, just indistinguishable,' he said.
'Even if the speed of those advancements dropped by 1000,
'We are clearly on a trajectory to have games indistinguishable from reality, and there would be billions of there.
'It would seem to follow that the odds that we're in 'base reality' is one in billions', Musk said.
Musk also spoke broadly about solar energy, space travel, self-driving cars and other emerging technology during the session.
He spoke to officials about state franchise dealership laws that ban the direct sale of his company's electric cars to consumers.
The billionaire met privately with some governors, including Louisiana Democrat John Bel Edwards, who recently signed a law that Musk's Palo Alto, California-based company says blocks it from selling cars there.
Mr Edwards said Tesla asked for the one-on-one meeting with Musk, which was short.
'I just asked him to come down to Louisiana and sit down with us, sit down with the Louisiana Automobile Dealers Association and work out some sort of a compromise, which they have successfully done in other states,' Mr Edwards said.
Allowing manufacturer-to-consumer sales also came up in meetings between Musk and two other governors - the conference's host, Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo, and Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy.
Representatives for the two Democrats confirmed they had private meetings with Musk and the topic came up.
EDITOR’S NOTE: It appears as though Elon Musk is to AI as Al Gore is to Global Warming.
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