Elon Musk: “Regulate AI Before it’s Too Late”

It’s no secret that artificial intelligence terrifies Elon Musk. He not only heads a movement to control AI research, he thinks the rise of smart robots is “our greatest existential threat”. Scientists even accused Musk of scaremongering. Now, Musk is at it again, calling on world government to regulate AI development before “it’s too late”. By “too late,” he means before “robots going down the street killing people”. These are actual words he used.

Killer Robots

Musk, speaking at the National Governors Association Summer Meeting in Rhode Island, claimed AI is the “biggest risk we face as a civilization.” He went further, warning of killer robots roaming the streets. Musk explained (via Recode):

“Until people see robots going down the street killing people, they don’t know how to react because it seems so ethereal. AI is a rare case where I think we need to be proactive in regulation instead of reactive. Because I think by the time we are reactive in AI regulation, it’s too late.”

“Fundamental Risk”

Musk’s plea is for authorities to be proactive – rather than reactive – in their efforts to regulate AI:

“Normally the way regulations are set up is a while bunch of bad things happen, there’s a public outcry, and after many years a regulatory agency is set up to regulate that industry. It takes forever. That, in the past, has been bad but not something which represented a fundamental risk to the existence of civilization. AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.”

No wonder Musk’s so keen to get to Mars!