Musk: ‘AI Has the Potential for Civilizational Destruction’
In a time when artificial intelligence has become an inevitability in our culture, Elon Musk says that won’t be enough for some people.
The billionaire tech mogul says there is one person in particular, Google co-founder Larry Page, who says he would push for “digital super-intelligence,” basically meaning a “digital god.” Musk told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that Page made that revelation to him years ago when he stayed at Page’s home in California when the two were “close friends.”
For believers, this should come as very little surprise, especially for a society that is quickly attempting to push God, the Creator of the universe, completely out of the picture. It only makes sense for those who persecute Christians and are showing an adamant hate for God.
Musk told Carlson that Page once told him he had hoped to build a “digital super-intelligence”—basically a digital god. Their friendship ended over a disagreement about OpenAI,, a company Musk helped to found as a competitor to Google’s AI efforts.
The two men haven’t talked for years, Musk told Carlson.
“I would talk to him late into the night about AI safety, and at least my perception was that Larry was not taking AI safety seriously enough,” Musk says.
Musk pointed out a number of public statements made by Page over the years that revealed “the whole goal of Good is what is called AGI—artificial general intelligence or artificial super-intelligence.”
Musk told Carlson that his and Page’s views on artificial intelligence differ greatly and said that Page believes “all consciousness should be treated equally whether it is digital or biological.”
Page once labeled Musk as a “speciesist” for his desire to implement safeguards to protect humanity from AI. Musk said a speciesist is a term for anyone who believe all living beings are inferior to humans.
Musk says Google’s approach to artificial intelligence has “great potential for good, but there is also potential for bad.”
“It is fundamentally profound In that the smartest creatures on this earth are humans,” Musk told Carlson. “It’s our defining characteristic. We are obviously weaker than chimpanzees and less agile but much smarter.
“So, what happens when something comes along that is vastly smarter than the smartest person [on earth] comes along? It’s sort of predictable what will happen in that circumstance. … So, I think we should be cautious with AI. There should be some government oversight because it’s a danger to the public. So, when you have things that are a danger to the public … that’s why we have the Food and Drug Administration, the FCC and so on. We have these agencies to oversee the things that affect the public. You don’t want companies cutting corners on safety and then having people suffer as a result.”
“I have been a strong advocate for a long time of AI regulation. We should take this seriously and have a regulatory agency [for AI].
“AI has the potential for civilizational destruction,” Musk says.
“It’s like the Terminator, but it wouldn’t quite happen like that because the intelligence would be in the data centers,” he says, adding, Regulations are put into effect only after something terrible has happened. If that’s the case with AI, it may be too late to put the regulations in place. AI may be in control at that point.”
Carlson asked Musk, “Is it conceivable that AI could take control and reach a point where you couldn’t turn it off, where it would be making decisions for people?”
“That’s definitely where things are headed,” Musk says. {eoa}
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Shawn A. Akers is the online editor at Charisma Media.
