Elon Musk forecasts a '10 to 20 per cent chance' of global disaster where humanity is annihilated by AI - but tells us to 'look on the bright side'
- The tech billionaire says that people should 'enjoy the ride' of AI advancements
- READ MORE: Elon Musk warns AI will outsmart mankind by the end of next YEAR
For a man funnelling billions into the development of AI, Elon Musk seems extremely concerned about the dangers of the technology.
The tech billionaire said today that he forecasts a '10 to 20 per cent probability' of a scenario in which AI annihilates humanity.
Speaking at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, Musk told audiences that even AI's most positive outcomes would lead to an 'existential crisis' for humanity.
However, Musk also said that people should remain positive despite the impending risk of destruction.
Musk said: 'The glass is 80% full. Look on the bright side.'
Tesla CEO Elon Musk (pictured at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity on Wednesday) has predicted that there is a 10 to 15 per cent chance of AI causing a global disaster which could destroy humanity
Musk has been a long-standing critic of AI, often saying that unchecked development could lead to the destruction of humanity.
Today Musk once again reiterated that point, saying: 'I tend to agree with Geoff Hinton – one of the godfathers of AI – and he thinks there’s a 10-20% probability of something terrible happening.'
Last year, Musk was one of 1,000 signatories calling for a pause on AI development.
The billionaire has even warned that AI could be 'one of the biggest threats to humanity'.
However, just as the Tesla CEO has before, Musk also argued that the potential benefits outweigh the risks.
Elon Musk is a long-time advocate for more AI safety, today telling an audience that the technology could either create a 'universal hike' in welfare or 'something terrible'
Musk has previously warned that AI could go rogue, much like in the movie The Terminator, and lead to humanities destruction
He said: 'I think the most likely outcome is one of abundance, where goods and services are available to anyone.
'There’s no shortage for any one of us. It would be a universal hike. Work would be optional.'
Yet, even in this optimal scenario, Musk warns that there would be a 'crisis of meaning' for humanity.
'If AI can do everything you can do but better, what’s the point of doing things? I think there will be an existential crisis.'
Despite the dire predictions, Musk advised that people should remain optimistic.
Speaking at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity today (pictured), Musk told audiences to look on the brighter side as there was an 80 per cent chance they would not be destroyed
Asked if he would like to live through AI's destruction of humanity, Musk replied: 'Would I want to be around to see it? Probably, yes.
He then told the audience they were 'at the most interesting time in history' and recommended that they 'enjoy the ride'.
The scenario Musk describes, in which all work is done by machines, is universally accepted as likely.
However, there is no question that AI and advances in robotics will lead to vast numbers of jobs becoming automated.
Traditionally secure jobs such as lawyers, doctors, and teachers may be replaced by sufficiently advanced language models.
Meanwhile advances in AI robotics are paving the way for the development of humanoid robots which could replace workers on factory floors.
Despite his warnings Musk over AI, musk has continued to invest in AI projects like XAI and robotics systems like the Tesla Optimus (pictured)
Musk himself is funding the development of Optimus, a humanoid robot created by Tesla which could one day take on manual labour roles.
Despite seeing AI as an existential risk and calling for a pause in research, Musk has also continued to pursue the development of his own AI company: XAI.
This has led to the release of Grok, which is supposed to be an edgier, sarcastic version of popular chatbots like OpenAI's ChatGPT.
In June, XAI closed its original funding round with $6 billion (£4.71bn) of investment, bringing its total valuation to $24 billion (£18.9bn).
Musk also faces a lawsuit from several Tesla shareholders who claim he knowingly diverted talent and resources into AIX from Tesla.
Speaking with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak last year, Musk warned that AI was one of the biggest threats to humanity
Musk said that we are living through one of the most interesting times in history and that we should 'enjoy the ride'
During his wide-ranging conversation with Mark Read, CEO of communications company WPP, Musk also attempted to smooth things over with advertisers on X (formerly known as Twitter).
After telling advertisers to 'go f*** yourself' in November, Musk now says that his comments were not intended to 'target advertisers as a whole'.
Rather Musk claimed that his comments were only addressed to a set of advertisers who were 'insisting on censorship'.
Musk added: 'I do shoot myself in the foot from time to time, but at least you know it’s genuine, not some sort of PR.'
Since Musk took over the platform in 2022 the market value of X, formerly Twitter, has plummeted by over 70 per cent according to Fidelity.
This has largely been driven by a decline in advertising revenue as companies fled the platform due to Musk's attitude towards free speech and offensive content.
Musk also tried to smooth over relations with Twitter's advertisers, saying that his comment that they should 'go f*** yourself' was only targeted at those who insisted on 'censorship'
This culminated in the tumultuous clash last year in which Musk claimed that advertisers were trying to 'blackmail' the social media platform.
Speaking today, Musk doubled down on his commitments to make X a 'free speech platform'.
He continued: 'I think it’s important to have a freedom of speech platform where people from a wide range can express their views.
'If it’s a choice between censorship and money and free speech and losing money, we’re going to pick the second.'
He said: 'Advertisers have a right to appear next to content that is compatible with their brands, that’s totally fine, but what is not cool is insisting that there can be no content they disagree with on the platform.'
However, Musk also attempted to sell Twitter as a valuable platform for advertisers to reach 'intellectuals' rather than 'influencers'.
Musk said: 'X is smaller than other social media platforms, but they’re the most influential people in the world, so if you want to reach them, it’s the best place to go.'
A TIMELINE OF ELON MUSK'S COMMENTS ON AI
Musk has been a long-standing, and very vocal, condemner of AI technology and the precautions humans should take
Elon Musk is one of the most prominent names and faces in developing technologies.
The billionaire entrepreneur heads up SpaceX, Tesla and the Boring company.
But while he is on the forefront of creating AI technologies, he is also acutely aware of its dangers.
Here is a comprehensive timeline of all Musk's premonitions, thoughts and warnings about AI, so far.
August 2014 - 'We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes.'
October 2014 - 'I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I were to guess like what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very careful with the artificial intelligence.'
October 2014 - 'With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon.'
June 2016 - 'The benign situation with ultra-intelligent AI is that we would be so far below in intelligence we'd be like a pet, or a house cat.'
July 2017 - 'I think AI is something that is risky at the civilisation level, not merely at the individual risk level, and that's why it really demands a lot of safety research.'
July 2017 - 'I have exposure to the very most cutting-edge AI and I think people should be really concerned about it.'
July 2017 - 'I keep sounding the alarm bell but until people see robots going down the street killing people, they don’t know how to react because it seems so ethereal.'
August 2017 - 'If you're not concerned about AI safety, you should be. Vastly more risk than North Korea.'
November 2017 - 'Maybe there's a five to 10 percent chance of success [of making AI safe].'
March 2018 - 'AI is much more dangerous than nukes. So why do we have no regulatory oversight?'
April 2018 - '[AI is] a very important subject. It's going to affect our lives in ways we can't even imagine right now.'
April 2018 - '[We could create] an immortal dictator from which we would never escape.'
November 2018 - 'Maybe AI will make me follow it, laugh like a demon & say who’s the pet now.'
September 2019 - 'If advanced AI (beyond basic bots) hasn’t been applied to manipulate social media, it won’t be long before it is.'
February 2020 - 'At Tesla, using AI to solve self-driving isn’t just icing on the cake, it the cake.'
July 2020 - 'We’re headed toward a situation where AI is vastly smarter than humans and I think that time frame is less than five years from now. But that doesn’t mean that everything goes to hell in five years. It just means that things get unstable or weird.'
April 2021: 'A major part of real-world AI has to be solved to make unsupervised, generalized full self-driving work.'
February 2022: 'We have to solve a huge part of AI just to make cars drive themselves.'
December 2022: 'The danger of training AI to be woke – in other words, lie – is deadly.'
