When it comes to innovation, the Musk name is not far behind. The Tesla boss has been driving research into artificial intelligence for years. But now Musk is expressing concerns for the first time. He probably did a lot to speed up this dangerous technology, he says, and advocates stricter regulation.
Tesla founder and Twitter boss Elon Musk, contrary to his usual stance, is in favor of regulation on one topic: artificial intelligence (AI). “AI stresses me out,” Musk said Wednesday at Tesla’s investor day in Austin, Texas. “We need some kind of regulator or something else to oversee AI development.” It must be ensured that AI is operated in the public interest. “It’s quite a dangerous technology. I’m afraid I’ve done some things to speed it up.” Tesla’s quest to enable its cars to safely drive themselves is “obviously useful” AI.
When asked by an analyst whether AI could help Tesla build cars, Musk expressed little optimism. “I don’t think AI will be helping us build cars anytime soon,” he said. “At that point…there would be no point in working at all.” Musk appeared to confirm via Twitter earlier this week reports that he was assembling a team of AI experts himself. Musk regularly clashes with various regulators at Twitter and Tesla, as he often advocates for more freedom and less interference.
As the technology news site “The Information” reported earlier this week, Musk also wants to jump on the success of the text-based chatbot ChatGPT with a new research laboratory on artificial intelligence. Musk recruited Igor Babushkin, a researcher who recently left Alphabet’s DeepMind AI unit, the report said, citing people familiar with the matter. Musk and Babushkin talked about putting together a team to advance AI research. The project is still in the early stages and there is no concrete plan for the development of specific products, the report quotes from an interview with Babushkin.
