The success of the artificial intelligence (AI) software ChatGPT has been the biggest win for the technology sector so far this year after a disappointing 2022.
Tech giants and startups alike are racing to replicate the AI platform, which witnessed meteoric success overnight, and billionaire tech genius Elon Musk is no exception. But the Twitter CEO has made some controversial statements regarding artificial intelligence over the years.
AI Is The Greatest Threat To Humanity
Some might not be aware that Musk is a co-founder of OpenAI, the startup that created ChatGPT. He left the organization in 2018 because of disagreements in AI development strategies and to refocus on his electric car and space exploration companies.
The tech mogul believes artificial intelligence to be the “greatest threat to humanity” and says it could have a Terminator-like outcome. Before OpenAI was founded in 2015, Musk stated that AI is “potentially more dangerous than nukes.”
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At the World Government Summit held last month in Dubai, UAE, the Tesla Inc. (NASDAQ:TSLA) founder said, “One of the biggest risks to the future of civilization is AI. But AI is both positive or negative — it has great promise, great capability but also, with that comes great danger.”
Comparing the development of AI to nuclear physics, he continued, “I mean, you look at say, the discovery of nuclear physics. You had nuclear power generation but also nuclear bombs.”
The top three biggest threats to humans, according to Musk, are the unchecked growth of artificial intelligence, the declining global birth rate and religious extremism.
AI Moderation A Must
AI continues to be one of the greatest feats of modern technology. ChatGPT’s user-friendly interface put it on the radar of pretty much every moderately tech-savvy person, elevating the fears of AI opposers, including Musk.
Musk believes that the regulation of artificial intelligence is a need of the hour.
“I think we need to regulate AI safety, frankly,” the polymath stated. “Think of any technology which is potentially a risk to people, like if it’s aircraft or cars or medicine, we have regulatory bodies that oversee the public safety of cars and planes and medicine. I think we should have a similar set of regulatory oversight for artificial intelligence because I think it is actually a bigger risk to society.”
While regulation is expected to slow down the rampant growth of AI use, Musk believes it to be a “good thing.”
Musk’s call for AI oversight is not new. He has been openly preaching the need for a public body regulating the development of artificial intelligence. At the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference in 2018, he said, “I am not normally an advocate of regulation and oversight — I think one should generally err on the side of minimizing those things — but this is a case where you have a very serious danger to the public.”
Addressing the National Governors Association’s Summer Meeting in 2017, Musk iterated, “AI is a rare case where I think we need to be proactive in regulation rather than be reactive.”
Building A ChatGPT Rival
Despite previous inhibitions, Musk has been taking an active role to develop AI amid increasing demand for the technology. According to a recent Reuters article, Musk has been recruiting AI researchers and developers, including ex-Google DeepMind AI unit researcher Igor Babuschkin, to build a ChatGPT rival. The major point of distinction between Musk’s AI software and ChatGPT would be that his version “would not be woke.”
Stating that ChatGPT is “scary good,” Musk tweeted, “The danger of training AI to be woke – in other words, lie – is deadly.”
Musk has a history of incorporating artificial intelligence into his products, as Teslas have been running on well-developed AI-powered autopilot systems over the past few years. In addition, he founded his neurotechnology startup Neuralink to enable humankind to establish a “symbiosis with artificial intelligence.”
Last September, he debuted the humanoid Tesla robot, comparing it with the “Transformers” movie franchise’s Optimus Prime. The AI-powered Tesla bot was dubbed a “fundamental transformation” inflection point by Musk during its unveiling on Tesla AI day.
What’s Next for AI Startups
After being on the sidelines for years, artificial intelligence has been gaining traction. ChatGPT is on track to become the fastest-growing private startup. Nonetheless, tech giants including Google and Microsoft are racing to better the ChatGPT software.
Whether it’s ChatGPT, Bing, Google or the latest startup, it’s clear AI Is here to stay and quickly becoming a part of people’s everyday lives.
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