Tesla CEO Elon Musk solidifies stance against weaponizing of AI

Tesla CEO Elon Musk tweeted an article detailing how hackers have already begun weaponizing artificial intelligence.

The story, which appeared on Gizmodo, discusses an experiment where an AI program was tasked with studying human social media habits and creating phishing bait. The AI program blew its human counterparts out of the water, pumping out 6.75 malicious tweets per minute compared to one candidate’s 1.075 tweets per minute.

The program lured 275 victims into clicking on the malicious software. Despite being an experiment, Gizmodo took it as an opportunity to explain how this is a clear example of how hackers can use artificial intelligence to commit crimes on the internet.

At a BlackHat national cybersecurity convention in Las Vegas, a staggering 62 percent of experts said that hackers would use AI technology to wreak havoc on the internet in the coming year.

“Hackers have been using artificial intelligence as a weapon for quite some time,” said Brian Wallace, Cylance Lead Security Data Scientist, in an interview with Gizmodo.

“It makes total sense because hackers have a problem of scale, trying to attack as many people as they can, hitting as many targets as possible, and all the while trying to reduce risks to themselves. Artificial intelligence, and machine learning in particular, are perfect tools to be using on their end.”

Hackers’ use of bots and other AI programs to create malware that threatens consumers’ computers is an example of the danger Musk warned about regarding AI development.

Reports about cybersecurity experts’ concerns confirm Musk’s fears, who has said AI could eventually be humanity’s downfall. Musk also went toe-to-toe with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg a few weeks ago.

After Zuckerberg made several positive comments about AI development during a Facebook Live post, Musk responded by tweeting, “I’ve talked to Mark about this. His understanding of the subject is limited.”

Musk helped found nonprofit OpenAI to help support safe, responsible autonomous development.

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