Why Elon Musk’s Fear of AI Is Misguided
A review of his opinions on the occasion of the upcoming Tesla AI day on Sept 30
The following is a selection from The Algorithmic Bridge, an educational newsletter whose purpose is to bridge the gap between algorithms and people. It will help you understand the impact AI has in your life and develop the tools to better navigate the future.
Elon musk is the richest person in the world. He’s a very talked-about celebrity and equally hated and loved in the tech spheres. He’s also a notable opinion-maker. Is in this regard that today’s discussion of Musk matters to us. Not because he’s the best posited to strongly opine about AI but because he reaches millions of people and can easily influence the world’s view — and maybe yours, too.
This article isn’t intended to dismiss his ideas — even if he’s not the most knowledgeable person about AI, he’s not a fool — but to make a deeper analysis of why he thinks what he thinks, and where I disagree with him. Importantly, I don’t claim to know more than him on this topic. My goal is to show you an alternative view of AI so you can decide for yourself what you choose to believe.
I’m going to focus on his fear of AI: He’s worried it could become an existential threat if we continue the current path of progress. First, because it’s an increasingly hot topic among AI insiders (I recently shared the news that 1 in 3 NLP scientists think that AI could cause a global catastrophe at the level of an “all-out nuclear war”). Second, because it’s extremely urgent if he turns out to be right. And third, because even if he’s wrong, there’s a lot to learn from the causes of his worries.
I don’t really like making Musk the center of my writing, but it’s interesting to have some context before the September 30 AI day event in which Tesla is supposed to reveal a working prototype of the humanoid bot, Optimus (I’ll cover it for The Algorithmic Bridge on Friday).
