Elon Musk spent a big part of his Labor Day in a different way than we’d expect; he tweeted his thoughts about World War III
The CEO of SpaceX and Tesla spent his Labor Day predicting World War III. However, he was not focusing his attention on North Korea’s nuclear weapons, nor on everything else that is currently happening around the world. What Musk is mostly concerned about is artificial intelligence.
He said that: “North Korea should be low on our list of concerns for civilizational existential risk.”
In another tweet, he said: “Competition for AI superiority at national level most likely cause of WW3 imo.”
On the other hand, his thoughts did not come out of nowhere. His prediction was in response to a recent comment that Russian President Vladimir Putin has made: “Artificial intelligence is the future not only of Russia but of all of mankind. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.”
For the moment, the United States, China and India are the ones leading the AI race. However, Musk strongly believes that others will also try to catch up, by any means possible. Govts don’t need to follow normal laws,” he said in one tweet. “They will obtain AI developed by companies at gunpoint, if necessary.”
In yet another reply on the social network platform, Musk speculated that an AI system could definitely choose to start a way “if it decides that a prepemptive [sic] strike is most probable path to victory.”
Musk has always tried to issue as many warnings as possible regarding the perils of AI, and called for new regulation that would keep the public safe. He also came in conflict with at least one tech billionaire: Facebook.
Zuckerberg classified Musk’s AI doomsday rhetoric as being “pretty irresponsible.”
