Tech billionaire Elon Musk has cautioned China’s top communists about the potential threat of a superintelligent AI seizing control of the country, even as he continues with his own AI ventures.
Business Insider reports that even as he moves forward with his own AI projects, tech billionaire Elon Musk has warned China’s top officials about the potential danger of a superintelligent AI taking over the nation.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk (C) poses for photos with buyers during the Tesla China-made Model 3 Delivery Ceremony in Shanghai. (Photo by STR/AFP via Getty Images)
Elon Musk – CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and the Boring Company, and Chinese president/emperor Xi Jinping.
Elon Musk, the billionaire who recently gushed over the “wisdom and determination” of China’s AI workers and pledged to uphold the country’s “core socialist values,” has now voiced his concerns about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence. In a conversation with China’s senior leaders, Musk warned of the creation of a “digital superintelligence” that could potentially usurp the Chinese Communist Party and take control of the country.
“I think that did resonate,” Musk said during a recent call. “No government wants to find itself unseated by a digital superintelligence.”
These comments came as Musk unveiled his latest venture, xAI, a new company that aims to rival OpenAI and other tech giants in the quest to understand the true nature of the universe.
“I think trying to understand the universe is going to be pro-humanity, from the standpoint that humanity is just much more interesting than not humanity,” Musk said during the call.
Musk’s concerns about the potential dangers of AI becoming a kind of “superintelligence” with capabilities surpassing those of humans have been growing louder since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT. He expressed a desire to “press pause” on the advancement of AI, but acknowledged that this might not be a realistic approach.
During his trip to China, Musk was treated with high regard, meeting with senior government officials and business leaders to discuss popular topics such as AI. He revealed that his conversations with leaders in the country had sparked interest in working on a “cooperative international framework” to regulate AI. However, he also acknowledged the existence of a fair bit of distrust towards the US in these discussions.
Read more at Business Insider here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan