Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and owner of the ‘X,’ claimed on Wednesday that artificial intelligence (AI) could imperil human civilization. “There is some chance, above zero, that AI will kill us all. I think it’s slow, but there is some chance. I think this also concerns the fragility of human civilization. If you study history, you will realize that every civilization has a sort of lifespan,” he said.
His comments came during a press conference as he landed in the United Kingdom to attend the world’s first global Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit.
Furthermore, Musk was observed conversing with some of the summit attendees.
Earlier, a day before attending the AI summit, Musk spoke on comedian Joe Rogan’s podcast, where he said that artificial intelligence (AI) programmed by the “environmental movement” could lead to humanity’s extinction.
In the podcast, he said, “Actually, what I think the biggest danger is for AI is that if AI is implicitly programmed, I don’t think they explicitly but implicitly programmed with values that led to the destruction of downtown San Francisco. And a bunch of these AI companies are in San Francisco or the San Francisco Bay Area. Then you could implicitly program an AI to believe that extinction of humanity is what it should try to do.”
He added, “I think the most likely outcome, to be specific about it is a good outcome, most likely a good outcome. But it’s not for sure. So I think we’re to be careful how we program the eye and make sure that it is not accidentally antihuman.”
Moreover, the social media company Meta President said, “I’m looking forward to attending the AI Safety Summit in the UK this week. I hope we spend as much time as possible developing much-needed solutions to current problems—for example, on the transparency and detectability of AI-generated content.”
He added, “not just debating speculative future risks about AI models that currently do not exist and may never possess the autonomy and agency that some people fear.”
The summit, which is currently taking place in the United Kingdom, will bring together governments, academia, and companies working in artificial intelligence to discuss and identify risks, opportunities, and the “need for international collaboration, before highlighting consensus on the scale, importance, and urgency of AI opportunities,” according to a statement issued by the British High Commission. Furthermore, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has stated that following the AI meeting, he will hold a live talk with Elon Musk on X.
