Elon Musk warns AI like the kind made by Tesla should be regulated by international laws
- Elon Musk tweeted that companies developing AI like Tesla should be regulated
- The tweet was sent in response to a report on the company OpenAI
- Musk left his post at OpenAI in 2018 due to conflicts of interest
Tesla and SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk, says that AI like the one his companies make should be better regulated.
Musk’s opinion on the dangers of letting AI proliferate unfettered was prompted by a report published in MIT Technology Review about changing company culture at OpenAI, a technology company that helps develop new AI.
Elon Musk formerly helmed the company but left due to conflicts of interest.
The report claims that OpenAI has shifted from its goal of equitably distributing AI technology to a more secretive, funding-driven company.
‘OpenAI should be more open imo,’ he tweeted. ‘All orgs developing advanced AI should be regulated, including Tesla.’
In the past Musk has likened artificial intelligence to ‘summoning the demon’ and has even warned that the technology could someday be more harmful than nuclear weapons.
Speaking at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) AeroAstro Centennial Symposium in 2014, Musk described artificial intelligence as our ‘biggest existential threat’.
‘I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very careful with artificial intelligence.
‘I’m increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish.’
He continued by likening the act of creating an AI to a horror movie.
‘With artificial intelligence we’re summoning the demon. You know those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram, and the holy water, and … he’s sure he can control the demon? Doesn’t work out.’
Musk isn’t the only high-profile CEO to advocate for regulation of AI and adjacent technologies.
Last month, CEO of Alphabet, Sundar Pichai called for international cooperation on regulating AI technology to ensure that it’s ‘harnessed for good’.
Elon Musk (pictured) has warned about the dangers of developing AI in the past, saying its akin to ‘summon the demon’
Sundar Pichai said that while regulation by individual governments and existing rules such as GDPR can provide a ‘strong foundation’ for the regulation of AI, a more coordinated international effort is ‘critical’ to making global standards work.
The CEO said that history is full of examples of how ‘technology’s virtues aren’t guaranteed’ and that with technological innovations come side effects.
‘Companies such as ours cannot just build promising new technology and let market forces decide how it will be used,’ he wrote in the Financial Times.
‘It is equally incumbent on us to make sure that technology is harnessed for good and available to everyone.
‘Now there is no question in my mind that artificial intelligence needs to be regulated. It is too important not to. The only question is how to approach it.’
