Elon Musk’s Billion-Dollar Crusade to Stop the A.I. Apocalypse

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/03/elon-musk-billion-dollar-crusade-to-stop-ai-space-x

by jonbaer • 9 years ago

6 5 9 years ago

Mendenhall• 9 years ago

AI is going to be like nukes, sounds like a great idea first and then everyone freaks out once the cat is out of the bag.

throwayedidqo2• 9 years ago

I'm imagining a Battlestar Galactica situation where things are only networked if absolutely necessary. The internet, now serious business, couldn't be trusted with a bunch of super-intelligent AI connected. I'm imagining the internet reverting to its early days where just visiting a site is potentially dangerous. A curiosity but no place you'd trust with your address or credit cards

mindfulmonkey• 9 years ago

I'm imagining a Battlestar Galactica situation where things are only networked if absolutely necessary.

... and all it would take is one rogue (or unaware) agent to plug in a USB stick somewhere and it's game over..

WheelsAtLarge• 9 years ago

True.

Interesting how all the talk is about A.I. raising and taking over. Similar to a killer phantom rising and destroying all.

All the people working on it like to promote the pluses and discount the minuses. Every technological advance has eventually been used as a weapon. Why would A.I. be any different?

I think the real near term danger is the use of it as a weapon against each other. It took less than 50 years from the invention of the plane to it becoming a major part of WWII. It will take even less for A.I. Even if no more A.I. advances happen from this point forward the possible weapons can be very scary.

A.I. should be added to the Geneva Protocol before it's too late. We can at least reduce the use of it as a weapon.

throwayedidqo2• 9 years ago

Good article, Musk's logic seems more sound than most of SV. Of course he's also the one building cars and rockets while everyone else's business boils down to fancy websites.

I admire his individualism. For such an innovative place, I find SV to be one of the loudest echo chambers in the world. God help you if you're Republican and if you use jQuery in 2017 you might as well kill yourself. There's a cult mentality, a smugness among those drinking the koolaid that they're somehow better than everyone else.

To me, messing with AI feels like what would've happened if nuclear energy had been discovered by private industry. We have 1000's of companies competing, tinkering, trying to build the smartest AI to power their systems. Right now, nobody has any idea if we're 5% away from prompt critical and an immense all consuming fireball. Well, maybe a few companies know, but its "proprietary information". As the past has proven repeatedly, private industry has no issues playing with something wildly dangerous.

Historically, most regulation starts life as a knee-jerk reaction to companies doing terrible things. Especially in staunchly capitalist societies like the US, where the government is seen as a necessary evil. I hope human military is enough to stop the first singularity from destroying the earth so we can get some reasonable regulations in place.

Elon Musk’s Billion-Dollar Crusade to Stop the A.I. Apocalypse

Related Stories