If Elon Musk is to be believed, the advent of super-powerful artificial intelligence could be the most consequential fork in the road in humanity’s journey.
Elon Musk has said that there’s an 80 percent chance that AI will lead to extreme prosperity for all. He also said that there’s also a 10-20 percent chance that it could end up killing all humans. Musk was speaking with Senator Ted Cruz on a podcast when he made his prediction.
“Is Skynet real? Like you get the apocalyptic visions of AI — how real is the prospect of killer robots annihilating humanity?” Cruz asked him. “20 percent likely,” Musk somberly replied. “Maybe 10 percent,” he replied.
“On what time frame?” Cruz asked him. “After 10 years,” Musk responded. “So that’s soon,” Cruz replied. “You see a world where that’s possible,” he said.
“But you can look at it like the glass is 80-90 percent full,” Musk explained. “Meaning like 80 percent likely that we will have extreme prosperity for all,” Musk said.
Musk’s odds aren’t bad — an 80 percent chance of extreme prosperity for all humans does seem to be like a pretty good outcome. It’s something that humanity has strived for thousands of years, and while it’s made incredible progress, millions still deal with poverty, deprivation and disease. If AI can bring about extreme prosperity for all humans, it could end up being the most consequential technology that humanity has ever developed.
But while the positives of AI could lead to a perfect utopia, what should give people pause is what comes as the other side of the bargain. Musk says that there’s a 10-20 percent chance that AI could eliminate or enslave all humans. This would be an extinction level event similar to the meteor strike that had killed all dinosaurs, or an ice age. And with the stakes being so high — and the outcomes so diametrically different — AI researchers, governments and regulators would need to do all they can to make sure the AI coin-toss comes up the way that maximizes the interests of the human race.