Elon Musk, the man behind successful futuristic and technology-related ventures that include the likes of Paypal, SpaceX, and Tesla, is ironically critical of artificial intelligence.
For a person who wants to die on the planet Mars and who invested in companies that engage in space transport services and create self-driving cars, people may expect that Musk is an avid supporter of artificial intelligence. It turns out that Musk belongs to the group of people who see A.I. as a threat to mankind.
In a comment posted on the website Edge.org, the 43-year-old business magnate warned that the developments in artificial intelligence, which some people see as a boon for mankind, could lead to an apocalypse.
It also appears that Musk is not only concerned about the possibility of intelligent robots rising against humanity and posing threats to human lives. He also seems to fear that the real world's version of judgement day similar to what was depicted in the movie Terminator is happening soon.
"The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I'm not referring to narrow A.I.) is incredibly fast," Musk wrote. "The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five-year time frame; 10 years at most. This is not a case of crying wolf about something I don't understand."
In his now deleted comment, Musk mentioned Deepmind, an artificial intelligence firm that search engine giant Google has reportedly acquired for at least half a billion dollars earlier this year.
"We combine the best techniques from machine learning and systems neuroscience to build powerful general-purpose learning algorithms," reads the Deepmind website.
Musk has invested in this company, but while it does not seem to make sense for a person to support and bet money on a company dealing with something he fears, the billionaire has actually supported Deepmind and another A.I. firm in order to keep an eye on them.
"Unless you have direct exposure to groups like Deepmind, you have no idea how fast it is growing at a pace close to exponential," Musk said.
As to why Musk's statement was deleted, a spokesperson told Mashable that it was not intended for publication but while the statement is already deleted from Edge.org, somebody has managed to grab a screenshot of Musk's latest rant against artificial intelligence and this is now being shared and discussed on Reddit.
