Elon Musk Predicts Catastrophic AI Event Will Occur Within 10 Years

Chuck Bednar for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online

Tesla CEO and SpaceX co-founder Elon Musk is once again sounding the alarm about artificial intelligence (AI), stating that “the risk of something seriously dangerous happening” could be as little as five years away.

According to re/code’s John Paczkowski, Musk responded to a post about AI at the website Edge.org with a comment that has since been deleted. In it, Musk essentially said that research into artificial intelligence was moving forward so quickly that he predicted a negative event would occur within the next decade.

He also went on to defend himself from potential criticism by stating that his views were “not a case of crying wolf about something I don’t understand,” added James Cook of Business Insider. Musk added by saying that he is “not alone in thinking we should be worried. The leading AI companies… recognize the danger, but believe that they can shape and control the digital superintelligences and prevent bad ones from escaping into the Internet. That remains to be seen.”

Musk’s representatives confirmed the authenticity of the comments to Paczkowski. A spokesperson said that Musk sent his views to Edge.org founder John Brockman via email and did not intend for them to be published. The individual added that Musk planned to write a longer blog post addressing the issue at a later date.

The South African-born inventor and entrepreneur has shared his views on the dangers of AI technology on multiple occasions. In October, while addressing those in attendance at the MIT Aeronautics and Astronautics Department’s 2014 Centennial Symposium, he compared AI to summoning demons and referred to it as the “biggest existential threat” currently faced by mankind.

Likewise, as Justin Moyer of The Washington Post pointed out, Musk said that AI was “potentially more dangerous than nukes” in August, and in June, he cautioned that the scientists in the movie The Terminator did not expect to be developing a killing machine – that they simply made the technology and were surprised by the outcome.

“It gets weirder: Musk has invested in at least two artificial intelligence companies – one of which, DeepMind, he appeared to slight in his recent deleted blog post,” Moyer said, adding that while DeepMind “was acquired by Google in January,” it appears as though Musk was “just supporting AI companies to keep an eye on them.”

“Unless you have direct exposure to groups like DeepMind, you have no idea how fast-it is growing at a pace close to exponential,” Musk wrote, according to The Washington Post. “It’s not from the standpoint of actually trying to make any investment return. It’s purely I would just like to keep an eye on what’s going on with artificial intelligence.”

Musk also recently invested in Vicarious, a firm working to design a computer capable of thinking like a person, Paczkowski noted. His involvement in such projects and his views on artificial intelligence led Moyer to ponder exactly what these firms are working on that has him so concerned – or, as Paczkowski put it, “Makes you wonder just what the hell is going on over there that has so unsettled him, doesn’t it?”

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