The robot uprising could be imminent: Elon Musk warns AI will outsmart humanity by the end of next year
From Terminator to Ex Machina, machines that overthrow their human creators are a staple of science fiction.
But the robot uprising could be closer than you think, as Elon Musk warns that AI will surpass humanity’s capabilities by the end of next year.
In an interview on X, Tesla’s CEO claimed that AI would become more intelligent than the smartest human within two years.
And within five years, Musk even predicts that there will be more “conscious” AIs than humans.
However, humanity might have a chance as Musk also claims that a shortage of advanced chips and electricity could hold back the development of AI.
Elon Musk has warned that the AI uprising could be closer than we thought, as AI could surpass human intelligence before the end of next year
Films like Ex Machina (pictured) have often imagined what could happen if AI exceeds humanity’s capabilities
Speaking to Nicolai Tangen, CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, yesterday, Musk claimed that AI is “the fastest advancing technology of any kind.”
Mr Musk said: ‘I suspect that by the end of next year we will probably have AI that is smarter than any human.
“I think that in five years, the total amount of, sort of, conscious computing power of AI will probably exceed that of all humans.”
His claims are based on the observation that an exponential amount of computing power is deployed on AI projects every year.
“AI is the fastest advancing technology I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of technology,” Musk said.
‘AI hardware and computers that come online specifically for AI are increasing by a factor of 10 every year, if not every 6-9 months.’
The rapid growth of computing power, or ‘compute’, is taken by some as a sign that the development of AI will continue to be just as rapid.
In the interview, Musk claimed that a ‘politically correct’ AI could decide to kill people of a certain race or gender to further its views – a scenario eerily reminiscent of some killer robot films such as Terminator (pictured)
During the interview, Musk talked about Google’s Gemini AI, which is embroiled in a scandal after refusing to generate images of white people.
Musk said: “It is very important to train the AI to be as truthful as possible. I think you can get some very dangerous things if you program an AI to be politically correct.”
He added that while the initial effects of “politically correct” AI may seem benign, the ultimate consequences could be dire.
‘If an AI has that much power, it can actually enforce diversity and decide there are too many of one kind of people or too many of one gender and kill enough of them until the diversity number is what it is programmed to believe is correct’ , he says. said.
Musk also said he believed Google would not eliminate political bias from its AI, but that it would become “less obvious and more subtle.”
In a post on
Musk has consistently claimed that progress in AI is happening much faster than others might think.
He has also spoken out about the potential dangers of the technology, repeatedly warning that advanced AI could be “one of the greatest threats to humanity.”
Despite his concerns, Musk has been one of the key figures in the development of modern AI.
He co-founded OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, but has since sued the company for failing to develop the technology for the benefit of humanity.
OpenAI denies these claims and insists that Musk “told us we would fail, created a competitor, and then sued us when we started making meaningful progress toward OpenAI’s mission without him.”
Musk is also pursuing the development of his own generative AI system, Grok AI.
In the interview, he claimed that Grok 1.5 would be ready in May and would be better than ChatGPT-4.
However, he also suggested that the development of his AI and others could be hampered by a shortage of advanced chips produced mainly by Nvidia.
While he claims those shortages are now easing, the price and supply of electricity could pose another problem.
Musk said, “Last year (AI) there were chip constraints… people couldn’t get enough Nvidia chips. This year we will switch to a power supply with voltage transformers. In a year or two (the constraint will be) just electricity supply.”