Tech billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are engaging in a social media fight over the fate of humanity and the threat of artificial intelligence (AI).
On Monday, the boss of Tesla said Zuckerberg’s understanding of the future of AI as being “limited.”
“I’ve talked to Mark about this. His understanding of the subject is limited,” Musk tweeted.
Musk made the comment in response to another Twitter user who sent him an article on the Facebook founder’s view about AI.
During a Facebook Live Q & A on Sunday, Zuckerberg was asked about what he thought of AI after Musk had said his “largest fear for the future” was artificial intelligence.
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“I have pretty strong opinions on this,” Zuckerberg said. “I’m really optimistic. I’m an optimistic person in general. I think you can build things and the world gets better. With AI especially, I’m really optimistic and I think that people who are naysayers and try to drum up these Doomsday scenarios, I just don’t understand it.
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“I think it’s really negative and in some ways, I actually think it is pretty irresponsible,” Zuckerberg said.
The Facebook founder went on to suggest that in the next “five to 10 years, AI is going to deliver so many improvements in the quality of our lives.”
Musk has warned in the past about humans being outsmarted by robots, and did so most recently last week during a gathering of U.S. governors at the summer conference of the National Governors Association in Rhode Island.
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Musk warned the U.S government that AI regulation was needed because it’s a “fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.”
“On the artificial intelligence front, you know I have exposure to the very most cutting edge AI. And, I think people should be really concerned about it,” Musk said. “I keep sounding the alarm bell but, you know, until people see like robots going down the street killing people like, they don’t know how to react, you know, because it seems so ethereal. And I think we should be really concerned about AI.”
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Musk said the first step is for government to get a better understanding of the fast-moving achievements in developing artificial intelligence technology.
“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’re reactive in AI regulation, it’s too late,” Musk said. “What’s going to happen is robots will be able to do everything better than us. I mean, I’m including all of us. Yeah, I am not sure exactly what to do about this.”
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