Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has apparently made a surprising shift in his stance on the potential impact of digital super-intelligence on humanity.
What Happened: On Thursday, Zero Gravity Corporation’s CEO Peter H. Diamandis shared a video on X, formerly Twitter, from Abundance Summit 2024, an event that was held between March 17 to 21.
The video showed Musk discussing whether digital super-intelligence is humanity’s greatest hope or fear.
In the video, Musk can be seen joining the event virtually and responding to the question, “With the advent of super-intelligence, it is actually very difficult to predict what will happen next.”
“So, I think there’s some chance that it will end humanity. I probably agree with Geoffrey Hinton, that it’s about, 10% or 20% or something like that. The probable positive scenario outweighs the negative scenario,” Musk added.
The tech mogul said, “There’s really no meaningful limit to the economic output. So, you know, looking on the bright side, we are headed for a future of abundance. I think that’s the most likely outcome.”
Musk reiterated his views when commenting on the video, which was posted on X, saying, “There are a range of outcomes, from terrible to great, but the latter is more likely imo.”
Why It Matters: Musk’s statement about the digital super-intelligence impact on humanity is a significant departure from his previous warnings about the potential dangers of AI. In 2023, Musk repeatedly cautioned about the risks posed by a “benign dependency” on AI, stating that it could be dangerous to civilization.
In fact, in March last year, he signed an “open letter” calling for a pause on training systems exceeding OpenAI’s GPT-4. However, in November later, Musk said that he signed the letter because he just “wanted to be on record," adding that he knew the entire exercise was “futile.”
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Meanwhile, earlier this month, the tech billionaire forecasted that AI could outsmart humans within a short time frame and could surpass the combined intelligence of all humans by 2029.
Meanwhile, Musk has also been criticized by fellow billionaires for his alleged approach to reaching AI supremacy. Billionaire techie Vinod Khosla has criticized the tech billionaire’s legal actions against ChatGPT-parent OpenAI, a company he co-founded in 2015 and left in 2018.
Musk was also criticized by his fellow "PayPal Mafia" member Reid Hoffman, who in May last year said that the Tesla CEO’s actions of signing that aforementioned “open letter” was “a little bit less well-intentioned, like ‘Everyone else slow down, so I can speed up.”
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