Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, claims that governments need to begin to regulate artificial intelligence prior to the technology becoming a threat to humanity at whole.
This is not the first warning from the entrepreneur, in fact, previously Elon Musk warned that with Artificial Intelligence, tech giants are literally ‘summoning the demon.’
With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon. You know, in all 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. Didn’t work out.
Musk stated that artificial intelligence is the greatest risk we face as a civilization;
“AI’s a rare case where we need to be proactive in regulation, instead of reactive. Because by the time we are reactive with AI regulation, it’s too late,” he remarked. Musk then drew a contrast between AI and traditional targets for regulation, saying “AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization, in a way that car accidents, airplane crashes, faulty drugs, or bad food were not.”
However, tech giants and those who operate in Silicon Valley are not paying attention to the actual concerns of artificial intelligence. According to Wikileaks editor Julian Assange;
“I know from our sources deep inside the Silicon Valley institution[s] that they genuinely believe that they are going to produce AI that’s so powerful, relatively soon, that people will have their brains digitized, uploaded to these AIs and live forever in simulation, therefore have eternal life.”
“It’s like a religion for atheists,” he added. “And given you’re in a simulation, why not program the simulation to have endless drug and sex orgy parties around you.”
Assange said this vision makes them work harder and the dystopian consequences of their work is overshadowed by cultural and industrial bias to not perceiving it.
He concluded that the normal perception someone would have regarding their work has been supplanted with “this ridiculous quasi-religious model that’s it all going to lead to nirvana.”