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Elon Musk warns that all A.I. must be regulated, even at Tesla

Tesla CEO Elon Musk thinks that organizations developing article intelligence should be regulated, including his own companies. 

Musk tweeted his thoughts on A.I. on Monday night, February 17, in response to an article written about research company OpenAI, which was once backed by Musk himself.

“OpenA.I. should be more open imo,” Musk tweeted. “All orgs developing advanced A.I. should be regulated, including Tesla.” 

All orgs developing advanced AI should be regulated, including Tesla

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2020

Musk also said that both individual governments and global organizations should handle the regulation of A.I. 

Both

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2020

He also responded to a tweet posted back in July about how OpenAI originally billed itself as a nonprofit, but the company is now seeking to license its closed technology. In response, Musk, who was one of the company’s founders but is no longer a part of the company, said that there were “reasonable concerns.” 

Unfortunately, I must agree that these are reasonable concerns

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 18, 2020

Musk exited the company last February, reportedly due to disagreements about the company’s direction. 

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has been outspoken about the potential dangers of A.I. before. During a talk sponsored by South by Southwest in Austin in 2018, Musk talked about the dangers of artificial intelligence. 

“Mark my words,” Musk warned. “A.I. is far more dangerous than nukes. So why do we have no regulatory oversight?”

Back in April, Musk said during an interview at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, that computers would eventually surpass us in every single way. 

Image used with permission by copyright holder

“The first thing we should assume is we are very dumb,” Musk said. “We can definitely make things smarter than ourselves.”

Musk pointed to computer programs that allow computers to beat chess champions as well as technology from Neuralink, his own brain interface company that may eventually be able to help people boost their cognitive abilities in some spheres, as examples.

A.I. is being criticized by others beside Musk, however. Digital rights groups and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) have called for either a complete ban or more transparency in A.I. technology such as facial recognition software. Even Google’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, has warned of the dangers of A.I., calling for more regulation of the technology. 

Last month, Pichai wrote in a Financial Times op-ed that “We need to be clear-eyed about what could go wrong” with A.I.

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Allison Matyus
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Allison Matyus is a general news reporter at Digital Trends. She covers any and all tech news, including issues around social…
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