The founder of the US company SpaceX, Elon Musk, believes that within the next five years, artificial intelligence systems could surpass the collective intelligence level of all humans.
“Elchi” reports that Musk expressed these views in an interview with The Economist.
“People don’t realize that what I’m saying will come true,” he stated.
According to Musk, artificial intelligence can both excite and frighten him on the same day. Nevertheless, he noted that he prefers to remain optimistic about the future.
The billionaire entrepreneur believes that within approximately 10 years, robots and artificial intelligence will take over the majority of jobs requiring both physical and mental labor, making human work a “voluntary choice.”
In his view, this process will result in “unparalleled abundance” in the world, and money will lose its former significance. Musk suggested that it would be sufficient for governments to simply provide financial payments to citizens, as the abundance of endless goods and services produced by machines would create a risk of deflation rather than inflation.
Musk also emphasized that safety issues in the field of artificial intelligence require international cooperation. He proposed that leading artificial intelligence companies, including those in the US and China, should inspect each other’s systems before releasing new models and share identified risks with governments.
To this end, he expressed readiness to cooperate with Sam Altman, the head of OpenAI, with whom he has been in a long-standing legal dispute.
“If we have to talk at the end of the day, we will. We can put our personal differences aside for the sake of the world,” Musk noted.
Musk also rated the possibility of Chinese companies becoming leaders in the artificial intelligence race in the future as high. According to him, China’s electrical energy potential and robot production capabilities create a significant advantage in this field.
Touching on geopolitical issues in the interview, Musk stated that he later realized he had become overly active in US politics.
“I, frankly, overstepped,” he admitted.
Making another bold prediction, Musk stated that he does not rule out the possibility of a civil war occurring in the UK within 20 years. In his opinion, the cause could be the tension created within society by views contrary to Western values.