Summoning the demon

If you don’t know who Elon Musk is, he founded Tesla Motors, which makes electric cars that drive like a rocket ship. He also founded Space X, which makes actual rocket ships.

He believes humans need to go to Mars.

“We’ll propagate civilization in the future far longer if we’re a multi-planet species than if we’re a single-planet species,” said Musk. “It’s like planetary redundancy backing up the biosphere.”

So in short, he is one of America’s fearless, cutting-edge billionaires. Yet, one reporter covering an MIT symposium last week described him as being “frozen” by this question from the audience, “Do you have any plans to enter the field of artificial intelligence?”

That’s a step that even the man who wants to go to Mars is reluctant to take.

“There should be some regulatory oversight,” he responded. “I mean, with artificial intelligence, we’re summoning the demon. You know those stories where there’s a guy with the Pentagram, the holy water, and he’s like ‘Sure, you can control the demon.’ It didn’t work out.”

Summoning the demon.

He’s worried about the unintended consequences of any machine that can teach itself and act on its own.

Fortunately, there is a limitation on artificial intelligence and that is if these mind-Bots are anything like your smart phone, the batteries will run down long before they can wipe us out.

So as long as they don’t learn to plug themselves into a charger, I think we’re safe.

Although, I should point out that as the head of Tesla, it is Elon Musk himself who is busy developing just the type of long-lasting indestructible batteries that might enable the very demons he warns about. Which, come to think of it, might be why he wants Mars as a backup.