Elon Musk warned in an interview with Fox News that artificial intelligence could destroy civilization. The multibillionaire states that he has been warning about this for years, but at the same time also invests in AI himself.
In an interview with the American television channel Fox News, Musk shares his concerns about artificial intelligence. “AI is more dangerous than a poorly designed or maintained aircraft or poor car production,” says the owner of Tesla and Twitter. “In that sense, it can potentially destroy civilization, although the probability is slim.”
He also called the government to regularize AI “even though regularization is not fun”. And that should not take too long because, according to Musk, a regularization can come too late if AI already has power. “An agency should form a group that will research AI, solicit industry opinions and then recommend regulation,” says the billionaire.
Musk has been warning about the dangers of AI for years and last month signed a call to take a six-month break for the development of AI systems. Also shared this week was an excerpt from Musk on Joe Rogan’s podcast in which he says he spent years trying to convince people to slow down with AI development because he saw dangers in it, but no one listened.
He would also have urged Barack Obama to regulate AI systems. “The only one-on-one conversation I had with Obama as president was not used to promoting Tesla or SpaceX (his space company, ed.), but to stimulate AI regulation,” says Musk.
Yet Musk also invests in AI himself. His car company Tesla is so dependent on AI that an annual AI day is organized. Moreover, he was also one of the founders of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT.
Musk has said that the current development of OpenAI “was not his intention at all”. But now, he wants to develop a new AI system to compete with OpenAI. “We’re going to start something I call TruthGPT,” says Musk. “It is an AI that seeks the truth as much as possible and wants to understand the nature of the world. I think this is the best way to safety. It is unlikely to destroy people because we are an interesting part of the world.”
