Billion dollar AI research firm to 'safeguard the world' and make us 'superhuman'
Elon Musk and Peter Thiel back billion dollar AI research
firm to 'safeguard the world' and make us 'superhuman'
OpenAI will 'advance digital intelligence in the way that
is most likely to benefit humanity'
Musk has previously claimed AI is 'more dangerous than
nukes'
By MARK PRIGG FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 19:05 EST, 11 December 2015 | UPDATED: 19:53
EST, 11 December 2015
Elon Musk, chief executive of electric carmaker Tesla
Motors, on Friday unveiled OpenAI, a non-profit artificial intelligence
research company that is backed by other prominent names from the technology
world.
'Our goal is to advance digital intelligence in the way
that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to
generate financial return,' a blog post on OpenAI's website said.
The non-profit will be co-chaired by Musk and technology
venture capitalist Sam Altman, who has backed Reddit.
HOW IT WILL WORK
'As a non-profit, our aim is to build value for everyone
rather than shareholders.
'Researchers will be strongly encouraged to publish their
work, whether as papers, blog posts, or code, and our patents (if any) will be
shared with the world.
'We'll freely collaborate with others across many
institutions and expect to work with companies to research and deploy new
technologies.'
Musk told Backchannel 'As you know, I’ve had some
concerns about AI for some time.'
He also revealed he wants to use AI to make us
'superhuman'
'If you think about how you use, say, applications on the
internet, you’ve got your email and you’ve got the social media and with apps
on your phone — they effectively make you superhuman and you don’t think of
them as being other, you think of them as being an extension of yourself.
'So to the degree that we can guide AI in that direction,
we want to do that.'
OpenAI's list of donors include PayPal Holding Inc
co-founder Peter Thiel, LinkedIn Corp co-founder Reid Hoffman and Musk himself
among others.
They have committed $1 billion for the fledgling firm,
but OpenAI said it expects to spend a 'tiny fraction' of that amount in the
next few years.
Other backers include Amazon.com's cloud unit Amazon Web
Services, Indian IT giant Infosys and Greg Brockman, former chief technology
officer of payments startup Stripe.
'I think the best defense against the misuse of AI is to
empower as many people as possible to have AI,' said Musk.
'If everyone has AI powers, then there’s not any one
person or a small set of individuals who can have AI superpower.'
The organisation is a non for profit, and will use
computing time from Amazon.
'Since our research is free from financial obligations,
we can better focus on a positive human impact,' the team said.
'We believe AI should be an extension of individual human
wills and, in the spirit of liberty, as broadly and evenly distributed as is
possible safely.'
'The outcome of this venture is uncertain and the work is
difficult, but we believe the goal and the structure are right.'
The organisation has pledged to try and combat
'surprises' from other firms.
'Because of AI's surprising history, it's hard to predict
when human-level AI might come within reach.
'When it does, it'll be important to have a leading
research institution which can prioritize a good outcome for all over its own
self-interest.'
ELON MUSK'S OUTSPOKEN VIEW ON AI - 'SUMMONING THE DEMON'
Last year, Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind Space-X and
Tesla, warned that the risk of 'something seriously dangerous happening' as a
result of machines with artificial intelligence, could be in as few as five
years.
He has previously linked the development of autonomous,
thinking machines, to 'summoning the demon'.
Speaking at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
(MIT) AeroAstro Centennial Symposium in October, Musk described artificial
intelligence as our 'biggest existential threat'.
He said: 'I think we should be very careful about
artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential
threat is, it's probably that. So we need to be very careful with artificial
intelligence.
'I'm increasingly inclined to think that there should be
some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just
to make sure that we don't do something very foolish.
'With artificial intelligence we're summoning the demon.
'You know those stories where there's the guy with the
pentagram, and the holy water, and … he's sure he can control the demon?
Doesn't work out.'
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