Elon Musk has warned of the dangers of artificial intelligence again, this time painting a terrifying picture of robots that “move so fast you’ll need a strobe light to see them.”
The SpaceX and Tesla founder was commenting on Atlas, the robot that can do backflips. A video of the robot flipping backward and landing on its feet was released by Boston Dynamics earlier this month.
“This is nothing, in a few years, that bot will move so fast you’ll need a strobe light to see it. Sweet dreams…” Musk said in a tweet Sunday.
“Otherwise you’d only see a blur.” Musk added when someone asked what he meant about the strobe.
“Got to regulate AI/robotics like we do food, drugs, aircraft and cars. Public risks require public oversight.” he wrote. “Getting rid of the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration] wouldn’t make flying safer. They’re there for a good reason.”
Musk is an outspoken critic of the dangers posed by AI, despite working to make advances in the area. His OpenAI lab has created an AI that can teach itself, while his Tesla cars use machine learning to drive.
What makes AI dangerous to humans, according to many opponents, is the fact that it is being developed to be more clever than humans, and imbued with the ability to learn without human assistance. Potential AIs are also seen as lacking the notion of guilt, morals or emotion.
Speaking to Rolling Stone in November, Musk said we only have “a 5 to 10 percent chance of success” of making AI safe.