Tech billionaire Elon Musk says artificial intelligence has gotten incredibly advanced and that it is something we should all be worried about.
Musk told attendees at the World Government Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates that “One of the biggest risks to the future of civilization is AI”, shortly after mentioning the development of ChatGPT.
The Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter boss was asked about how he sees technology developing 10 years from now.
Musk is co-founder of OpenAI, the US startup that developed ChatGPT a so-called generative AI tool which returns human-like responses to user prompts.
ChatGPT is an advanced form of AI powered by a large language model called GPT-3. It is programmed to understand human language and generate responses based on huge bodies of data.
Musk added that regulation “may slow down AI a little bit, but I think that that might also be a good thing”.
The billionaire has long warned of the perils of unfettered AI development. He once said artificial intelligence is “far more dangerous” than nuclear warheads.
His words have more gravity today, as the rise of ChatGPT threatens to upend the job market with more advanced, human-like writing.
Musk left OpenAI’s board in 2018 and no longer holds a stake in the company.
Part of the reason for Musk’s decision to establish OpenAI was because “Google was not paying enough attention to AI safety”.
ChatGPT has led to a heated battle between Google, a titan of internet search, and Microsoft, which has invested in OpenAI and integrated its software into its Bing web browser.
While Google fired back at ChatGPT, with its own rival tool, called Bard. The company is playing catch-up, as investors question whether ChatGPT will pose a threat to its dominance in web search.
Writing by Tersoo Nicholas