We are 'summoning the demon' with AI: technologist Elon Musk

Date: October 27, 2014

(29)
Comments 43

Adario Strange

Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk Photo: MIT

This post was originally published on Mashable.

There have already been several dire warnings from Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk in recent months regarding the perils of artificial intelligence, but this week he actually managed to raise the bar in terms of making AI seem scary.

First, according to Musk, AI was as dangerous as nuclear war. Now Musk is likening the possible battle between humans and computers in the future, termed by some as "the singularity," as a struggle for the soul of mankind itself.

How so? By invoking the one thing even those with little interest in technology fear the most: demons!

In an hour-long interview for MIT, which held its Centennial Symposium last week, Musk opened himself up to the audience for questions. Most of the questions were about space travel, but one audience member asked Musk for his thoughts on artificial intelligence, and that's when things got a bit spooky.

"I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence," said Musk, the expression on his face suddenly turning very serious. "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. There should be some regulatory oversight maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don't do something very foolish."

Sounds reasonable. Prudent even. A generally conservative approach to a potential technological issue facing our world in the future. Wise words.

But then…

"With artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon," said Musk. "In all those stories where there's the guy with the pentagram and the holy water, it's like, 'Yeah, he's sure he can control the demon.' Doesn't work out."

Forget Tony Stark, the comic book character most often associated with Musk, it may be time to start thinking Doctor Strange. Pentagram? Really, Elon?

And lest you think Musk was just fooling around about his fear of the potential dangers of AI, when the next questioner asked him about telecommunications, he stumbled for a bit and admitted that he was still pondering the question of AI. You can watch the entire video below, or click here to skip to Musk's demonology musings.

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Sure, it's just a colorful metaphor, but coming from such an accomplished technologist, those comments are pretty startling. Musk is scared. Really scared.

Mashable is the largest independent news source covering digital culture, social media and technology.

43 comments so far

If you consider his background and what he's achieved and the canon of work by humanist, futurist seers like Asimov, Clarke, et al, that underpins our advances then you'll see that this is not a new idea.
So, coming now from a man like this at the cutting edge of technology, it should be taken very seriously.
The bomb was bad enough but we still had to press the button; AI literally removes that last stop-gap.
Some people decry regulation, but nothing in this world that works is completely free, in all systems there are balances and counter pressures.
We are currently wiring up every piece of technology in the world; AI is the proposition that we should allow this network to run itself, which is patently absurd.
Look at the carnage that 'dumb' computer viruses already wreak ...

Commenter

Stephan Gyory

Date and time

October 27, 2014, 9:31AM
Its called a metaphor.
An AI running amok is a long held theme in scifi stories and movies (and heck the tradition of men trying to create monsters that they then can't control goes back millenia).
Given the huge (and continuing) increases in computing power and networking it doesn't seem all that far fetched that such a scenario could happen in our lifetime. Especially as lots of people are actively trying to develop AI everyday.

Commenter

Peter

Location

Oz

Date and time

October 27, 2014, 9:34AM
- IMO it is far fetched. Unless there is a functional system that can combine biology and computing. AI today is nothing more than just 'a program'. Calculating something very quickly and repetitively isn't considered intellectual to me.
  My definition of AI would be able to biologically regenerate (not doctor who style) and adapt to environment by making judgement without the intervention of a purposefully designed computer program in order to have any sort of real meanings to intelligent.
  That's a long way to go, unless of course for research to lax on ETHICS! That would speed up the development time. Otherwise, having more hardware performance isn't going to do it.
  
  Commenter
  
  Gerson
  
  Location
  
  Sydney
  
  Date and time
  
  October 27, 2014, 9:57AM
- Maybe the thing to do is to consider this in non-anthropological terms. Look at the "carnage" wreaked by automated trading systems to what are otherwise "balanced markets" of human interaction. Existential threats can manifest in many ways and it is the less obvious that affect human lives in less bluntly obviously direct individual ways but more indirect collective ways that are the sleepers.
  As for combining biology and computing, this is already happening in the advanced experimental 3D printing world. IMHO, it's not "biology" that would give machines a self aware "life force" that becomes an existential threat. See the comment below about religion if you want to ponder the area that needs reconsideration.
  
  Commenter
  
  manarch
  
  Location
  
  Perth
  
  Date and time
  
  October 27, 2014, 10:48AM
- @Peter - I totally agree....its clearly a metaphor Musk is using - the "demons" bit is maybe 1 minute out of a 1h 23m talk. However, its clearly a "sexy grab", so it gets some attention. That said, he's probably quite right in highlighting concerns around the sort of things that may happen if AIs decides to "go their own way". References to this in Sci Fi are numerous, and often well thought through. From HAL 9000 to Termintaor, and beyond. Pretty much the best take I've seen on what's may well happen is Charles Stross's "Accelerando" scenario. Humans are more or less reduced to being the "rats and mice" in the understory of an ecosystem designed to suit the "vile offspring" that the AI's have become. Fascinating......and a bit scary!
  
  Commenter
  
  AJL
  
  Location
  
  In the Pentagram
  
  Date and time
  
  October 27, 2014, 12:34PM
- @Gerson you are pretty much completely wrong in saying that computers and the software that runs on them can't be deemed intelligent because, at a fundamental level, they just do repetitive numerical calculation. For one thing, that's all that human brains, at the neuronal level, do too.You need to read a good introductory book on AI.
  
  Commenter
  
  Jackxxx
  
  Location
  
  Melbourne
  
  Date and time
  
  October 27, 2014, 2:19PM
- @jackxxx - I am wrong is it? So i guess to your prejudgement, even if I have written robotics application using neural network and SLAM, I don't fit in the expert category? Ok....i know we are all expert these days by making accusation. You're wrong, therefore you are!
  All software these days is still based on design requirements, when a system can generate its own and new requirements by recognizing its environmental needs without human intervention then yeah, maybe i reconsidered such positions. Don't forget it needs to have implementation and execution and self correcting as well.
  Maybe you can now provide some expertise , because i certainly don't know any applications with such sophistication.
  I don't know about you, reading up some scientific notions doesn't mean it's happening! We are a long way to go and most so call AI system is still limited by its design requirements ie the designer.
  
  Commenter
  
  Gerson
  
  Location
  
  Sydney
  
  Date and time
  
  October 27, 2014, 3:30PM
Religion is a far greater threat to humanity's existence than a fictional AI.
Ridding ourselves of religion will go a long way to ensuring our future.

Commenter

ij

Date and time

October 27, 2014, 9:38AM
- Religion is just one 'meme' virus percolating our gene pool and look at how much trouble that is able to cause.
  This issue with AI is that we may well be actively building a new form of 'life' that will perceive us as a threat. It's only one small planet and we are using up available resources at an alarming rate. Bering another, more powerful player in, and it might well decide to be done with us which won't be hard considering that we have build a cozy www womb/playground for the thing.
  It's no coincidence that the US military is not wiring their ICBMs up to any kind of grid.
  But I also think that AI might be a misnomer, it is, perhaps, Artificial Consciousness that we should really be worried about.
  
  Commenter
  
  Stephan Gyory
  
  Location
  
  Sydney
  
  Date and time
  
  October 27, 2014, 10:10AM
- What a load of fundamentalist atheistic nonsense!
  
  Commenter
  
  FD
  
  Date and time
  
  October 27, 2014, 10:15AM

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