Elon Musk's AI warning: Artificial Intelligence is a 'potential danger to the public'

Elon Musk, 48, fears there is a lack of investment in artificial intelligence safety measures. The SpaceX founder appeared on the Lex Fridman Artificial Intelligence podcast on November 12, where he discussed the flaws in the AI industry. Mr Musk argued proper regulatory bodies need to be established before “something terrible happens”.

Mr Musk said: “I think there are a lot, a tremendous amount of investment going on in AI.

“Where there is a lack of investment is in AI safety, and there should be, in my view, a government agency that oversees anything related to AI to confirm that it is – does not represent a public safety risk.

“Just as there is a regulatory authority for, like the Food and Drug Administration, there’s NHTSA for automotive safety, there’s the FAA for aircraft safety.

“We’ve generally come to the conclusion that it is important to have a government referee or a referee that is serving the public interest in ensuring that things are safe when there’s a potential danger to the public.

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“I would argue that AI is unequivocally something that has potential to be dangerous to the public and therefore should have a regulatory agency just as other things that are dangerous to the public have a regulatory agency.

“But let me tell you, the problem with this is that the government moves very slowly, and the rate of – usually the way a regulatory agency comes into being is that something terrible happens.

“There’s a huge public outcry and years after that there’s a regulatory agency or a rule put in place.”

Mr Musk is a vocal supporter of regulating artificial intelligence technology for the betterment of mankind.

In August this year, he appeared at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, China, where he discussed the dangers of AI.

In 2014, Mr Musk dubbed artificial intelligence the “biggest existential threat” faced by humanity.

Mr Musk has also unveiled this year his company Neuralink, which is developing interfaces to connect the human brain to computers.

Discussing Neuralink on the AI Podcast, the South African billionaire boldly claimed his technology has the potential to cure many brain-related diseases.

He said: “So Neuralink, I think at first will solve a lot of brain-related diseases.

“So create anything from like autism, schizophrenia, memory loss, like everyone experiences memory loss at certain points in age. Parents can’t reminder their kids’ names and that kind of thing.

“So there’s, I think, a tremendous amount of good that Neuralik can do in solving a critical image to the brain or the spinal cord.

“There’s a lot that can be done to improve quality of life of individuals and those will be steps along the way.

“And then ultimately, it’s intended to address the rest of the existential risk associated with a digital superintelligence.”

In July, Neuralink announced its technologies have allowed a monkey to control a computer with its brain.

source: express.co.uk