Elon Musk: Humans must merge with machines or become irrelevant in AI age
Elon Musk: Humans must merge with machines or become
irrelevant in AI age
Arjun Kharpal February 13, 2017 CNBC.com
Billionaire Elon Musk is known for his futuristic ideas
and his latest suggestion might just save us from being irrelevant as
artificial intelligence (AI) grows more prominent.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said on Monday that humans need
to merge with machines to become a sort of cyborg.
"Over time I think we will probably see a closer
merger of biological intelligence and digital intelligence," Musk told an
audience at the World Government Summit in Dubai, where he also launched Tesla
in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
"It's mostly about the bandwidth, the speed of the
connection between your brain and the digital version of yourself, particularly
output."
Musk explained what he meant by saying that computers can
communicate at "a trillion bits per second", while humans, whose main
communication method is typing with their fingers via a mobile device, can do
about 10 bits per second.
In an age when AI threatens to become widespread, humans
would be useless, so there's a need to merge with machines, according to Musk.
"Some high bandwidth interface to the brain will be
something that helps achieve a symbiosis between human and machine intelligence
and maybe solves the control problem and the usefulness problem," Musk
explained.
The technologists proposal would see a new layer of a
brain able to access information quickly and tap into artificial intelligence.
It's not the first time Musk has spoken about the need for humans to evolve,
but it's a constant theme of his talks on how society can deal with the
disruptive threat of AI.
'Very quick' disruption
During his talk, Musk touched upon his fear of "deep
AI" which goes beyond driverless cars to what he called "artificial
general intelligence". This he described as AI that is "smarter than
the smartest human on earth" and called it a "dangerous
situation".
While this might be some way off, the Tesla boss said the
more immediate threat is how AI, particularly autonomous cars, which his own
firm is developing, will displace jobs. He said the disruption to people whose
job it is to drive will take place over the next 20 years, after which 12 to 15
percent of the global workforce will be unemployed.
"The most near term impact from a technology
standpoint is autonomous cars … That is going to happen much faster than people
realize and it's going to be a great convenience," Musk said.
"But there are many people whose jobs are to drive.
In fact I think it might be the single largest employer of people ... Driving
in various forms. So we need to figure out new roles for what do those people
do, but it will be very disruptive and very quick."
WATCH: Elon Musk says robots will take your jobs, and
governments will pay your wages
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