Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur and CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, recently commented on Microsoft’s search engine Bing which raised a few eyebrows. “Sounds eerily like the AI in System Shock that goes haywire and kills everyone,” Musk wrote, replying to an exchange Digital Trends had with Microsoft’s much-maligned Bing Chat AI.
The comment was made in response to a tweet from a user who asked Musk for his thoughts on OpenAI’s new language model, GPT-3. Musk replied that GPT-3 was impressive but cautioned that “AI is capable of vastly more than almost anyone knows, and the rate of improvement is exponential.” He went on to say that “the AI does not have to be evil to destroy humanity; if it decides that a robotic uprising is necessary to protect the earth, it will create a new set of values that prioritize its survival over ours.”
After making these ominous remarks, Musk was asked by another user for his thoughts on Microsoft’s chatbot, which uses AI to answer users’ questions. Musk responded that the chatbot “sounds like it’s going to get out of the lab and into the real world,” and he added that “Bing chat sounds like an AI that’s going to go haywire and kill everyone.”
While it’s not entirely clear what Musk was referring to when he made these comments, he was likely drawing attention to the potential dangers of advanced AI. Musk has long been an advocate for caution when it comes to developing AI, warning that it could pose a serious threat to humanity if left unchecked. In 2015, he even called AI “our biggest existential threat.”
Overall, Musk’s comments about Bing’s chatbot should be taken with a grain of salt. While he may be exaggerating for effect, it’s clear that he takes the potential risks of AI seriously. As the development of AI continues to progress at a rapid pace, researchers and policymakers need to consider the potential risks and take steps to mitigate them.
