Elon Musk has issued a ‘warning’ about the future of robots – claiming they will soon become so fast, humans won’t be able to see them.
The founder of Tesla said he is worried people will accidentally end up developing something unsafe.
Elon Musk, who has been highly critical of artificial intelligence developers over recent months, has revealed his thoughts on Atlas, the backflipping humanoid robot.
Twitter user Alex Medina captioned a promotional video from Boston Dynamics’ Atlas robot doing front flips and backflips on an obstacle course with the caption: ‘We dead’.
Musk replied by tweeting:
This is nothing. In a few years, that bot will move so fast you’ll need a strobe light to see it. Sweet dreams.
When asked what he meant by the strobe light comment, he added: ‘Otherwise you’d only see a blur.’
The tech billionaire then followed this up with an update calling for the regulation of AI and robotics, something he believes to be not only necessary but urgent.
Musk added:
Got to regulate AI/robotics like we do food, drugs, aircraft & cars. Public risks require public oversight. Getting rid of the FAA wdn’t make flying safer. They’re there for good reason.
As pointed out by François Chollet, a machine learning and artificial intelligence software engineer at Google, Atlas isn’t an AI bot.
Musk has made absolutely no secret of his belief AI will be a threat to people and just last week he said humans have a ‘five to 10 percent chance’ of making it safe.
This isn’t the first time Musk has warned about these particular types of advancements, back in September he said artificial intelligence will probably be the ‘spark that ignites a world war’, writes Huffington Post.
He tweeted:
China, Russia, soon all countries w strong computer science. Competition for AI superiority at national level most likely cause of WW3 imo.
The humanoid Atlas robot can be seen at the beginning of another video posted by Boston Dynamics walking around outside.
It is captured walking on uneven and snowy ground, manoeuvring around trees.
Boston Dynamics wrote in a description of the video posted on YouTube:
The new-and-improved robot is designed to operate outdoors and inside buildings.
It is specialised for mobile manipulation. It is electrically powered and hydraulically actuated. It uses sensors in its body and legs to balance and LIDAR and stereo sensors in its head to avoid obstacles, assess the terrain, help with navigation and manipulate objects.
The video goes on to show Atlas bending down to pick up 4.5kg boxes and pivoting to place the packages on a shelf.
Some people commenting on the impressive video weren’t happy about some guy pushing the robot around with a hockey stick, saying they felt ‘sad’ for the robot. Ok.
Alper ALT wrote: ‘The guy who kicks the robot will be fully responsible from [sic] the forthcoming robot-human wars.’
And jonelolguy, wrote: ‘Man, I actually feel bad for the robot.’
So that’s it then is it? Are we going to be outsmarted by robots?
