This past week, Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, warned an audience of MIT students of the risks from artificial intelligence.
“I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very careful with artificial intelligence.
I’m increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish. With artificial intelligence we’re summoning the demon. You know those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram, and the holy water, and he’s like — Yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon? Doesn’t work out.”
Musk has previously made headlines for explaining that his investments in Vicarious were intended to keep an eye on artificial intelligence risks, and for tweeting about Nick Bostrom’s book Superintelligence. He joined the advisory board of CSER several months ago.
Musk’s recent remarks on artificial intelligence and the remainder of his talk can be viewed here.