Elon Musk Says We’re Far More Likely To Be Killed By AI Than By North Korea

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Billionaire inventor and tech-philanthropist Elon Musk claims we should be more worried about Artificial Intelligence than an impending war with North Korea.

If science fiction has taught us anything it’s that machines cannot be trusted, from the Terminator franchise to Bicentennial Man – yeah I said it! Even I, Robot laid down the ‘three laws of robotics’ to warn us (I don’t care if it was all pretend).

With so many threats in the world; from unstable world leaders with their fingers on the nuke button, the rise in ultra-fascist, Alt-Right groups and our dwindling economy it seems trivial, and to some degree irrational having to worry about something as frivolous as  A.I.

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No one would blame you for thinking that, scenarios like the Matrix, Ghost In The Shell (the Manga version!) and Her are born out of pure fiction, but those ideas come from a healthy fear of what could be.

Elon Musk is a futurist in every sense of the word, he’s like a real life Tony Stark, and he says we need to be wary of this potential reality. According to him they pose more of a risk than a potential conflict between the U.S and North Korea.

He went on Twtter today to tell everyone:

If you’re not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea.

The post also came with a picture with a slogan promising:

In the end, the machines will win.

While he agreed that no one like rules or regulations, it’s a necessary evil and the same needs to be applied for A.I.

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He went on to say:

Nobody likes being regulated, but everything (cars, planes, food, drugs, etc) that’s a danger to the public is regulated. AI should be too.

Biggest impediment to recognising AI danger are those so convinced of their own intelligence they can’t imagine anyone doing what they can’t.

His fears come after an OpenAI, for the first time ever, was able to defeat the world’s best eSports competitors in one-on-one competition on Dota 2.

A recent study from Oxford University seems to confirm Musk’s predictions, concluding that AI will be better at handling all tasks than humans within the next 45 years.

However with the current state of the world we may not get there, both U.S President Donald Trump and North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un have been sending verbal warning shots with some people pointing out those two may doom mankind before our robot overlords ever get the chance.

Musk’s fears on A.I have also lead to a war of words, and ideals, with Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg who wants us to ’embrace A.I.’ – sounds like the machines have him indoctrinated already.

Brian Solis

After Musk labelled the Facebook founder’s love for A.I. as a ‘fundamental existential risk for human civilisation’ Zuckerberg hit back.

He claims Musk’s statement was ‘negative’ and ‘pretty irresponsible’, to which the SpaceX CEO responded by saying his knowledge of the subject was ‘limited’.

See, even super-rich tech moguls have real life beefs.

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Musk wants companies to slow down their development of A.I. to make sure they don’t accidentally build something so advanced that it becomes ‘unsafe’ or makes the human race obsolete.

Last month he said:

I think we should be really concerned about AI. AI’s a rare case where I think we need to be proactive in regulation instead of reactive…

Because I think by the time we are reactive in AI regulation, it’s too late.

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However, with household tech devices like the Amazon Echo (Alexa) and Google Home in mass production, are we too late to stop the rise of A.I.?

Or is there still time for us to momentarily halt the progress?

UNILAD