SpaceX and Tesla founder Elon Musk may be kicked about self-driving cars and his Mars project, but believes that technology may not always be the best thing, if not regulated. Speaking at the National Governors Association in Rhode Island, Musk said that artificial intelligence could be one of the most destructive technological innovations if not regulated.
Explaining that AI could, in fact, destroy the human race, Musk told Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval: "AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization in a way that car accidents, airplane crashes, faulty drugs or bad food were not. They were harmful to a set of individuals in society of course, but they were not harmful to society as a whole," reported RT News.
He also explained that while innovation is important to move forward, he does support the government when it comes to regulation of robot technology as the implications are larger if it is not "proactively" regulated.
"I think we should be really concerned about AI. AI is [the] rare case in which we have to be proactive in regulation instead of reactive," he said.
"By the time we are reactive, it's too late. Normally the way regulation works out is that a whole bunch of bad things happen, there's public outcry and after many years a regulatory agency is setup to regulate the industry."
Speaking about the ill-effects of AI, Musk also said that it could have a massive impact on employment and the workforce. He explained that robots will be able to do everything that humans do and in a better way.
"There will certainly be a lot of job disruption because what's going to happen is that robots will be able to do everything better than us," he said.
"This is really the scariest problem to me. I really think we need government regulation because you have companies of are racing, or kind of have to race to build to AI."
Apart from artificial intelligence and his space mission, Musk also spoke about his vision regarding self-driving cars. "I think things are going to grow exponentially. There's a big difference between five and ten years. Probably in ten years more than half of new vehicle production [will be] electric in the US."
"I think almost all cars produced will be autonomous in 10 years. It will be rare to find one that is not."
