Artificial intelligence (AI) may surpass the combined intelligence of all humans in about five years, and another five years later humanity will likely no longer control its development. This future is predicted by technology entrepreneur Elon Musk, head of Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and The Boring Company.
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Previously loudly warning about the dangers posed by AI, the billionaire now says he no longer sees a way to stop technological progress, so all that remains is to hope for the best. According to E. Musk, in the near future there may be no activity that artificial intelligence would perform worse than a human.
“I think that in about five years artificial intelligence can surpass the intelligence of all humans combined. Essentially, there will be nothing that AI could not do better than humans, except, probably, being human itself,” he said in an interview with The Economist.
Predicts an age of astonishing abundance
According to E. Musk, the most likely outcome of rapid AI development is not the collapse of humanity, but unprecedented abundance. Technology could create such a surplus of goods and services that almost everything a person desires would become available to everyone.
“The most likely result is an age of astonishing abundance, where everyone can have everything they can imagine. It may sound absurd, but now it is 2026. We will see where we are in 2036,” the entrepreneur said in the interview.
In his opinion, only a large-scale catastrophe, such as a global thermonuclear war, could prevent such a scenario. If it can be avoided, E. Musk says he looks to the future optimistically. However, he admits that people will probably not be able to control an intelligence technologically far superior to them for long.
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“If artificial intelligence surpasses humans more than humans surpass chimpanzees, it is hard to expect that control will remain in human hands,” he explained.
E. Musk’s warnings about artificial intelligence are not new. In 2023, together with other representatives of the technology and science world, he called for a pause of at least six months in the development of more powerful AI systems. The open letter warned that advanced systems could pose a serious threat to society and humanity. This was previously reported by 15min.
As reported by ScienceAlert, experts who signed the letter initiated by the Future of Life Institute funded by E. Musk urged AI labs to halt training systems more powerful than GPT-4 for at least six months. During this time, it was proposed to develop reliable safety protocols and AI governance measures. If companies voluntarily refused to pause work, the letter’s authors urged state authorities to intervene.
One of the letter’s authors, AI pioneer Yoshua Bengio, warned that society is not yet ready for such technologies or possible misuse of them.
“Let’s slow down. Let’s make sure we create better protective barriers, as we did in the field of nuclear energy and nuclear weapons,” said Y. Bengio, calling for a comprehensive international discussion about artificial intelligence and its consequences.
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