Elon Musk Unveils Apocalyptic Vision For The World

Tyler Durden's picture

Elon Musk is no stranger to futurecasting a foreboding dystopia ahead for mankind, as we noted recently. But during a  speech he gave today at the National Governors Association Summer Meeting in Rhode Island, Musk turned up the future-fearmongery amplifier to '11'.

As a reminder, in the past, when he was asked about whether humans are living inside a computer simulation, Musk made headlines last year by saying he thinks the chances are one in billions that we aren’t.

“The strongest argument for us probably being in a simulation I think is the following: 40 years ago we had Pong – two rectangles and a dot,” Musk stated.  

 

“That’s where we were. Now 40 years later we have photorealistic, 3D simulations with millions of people playing simultaneously and it’s getting better every year. And soon we’ll have virtual reality, we’ll have augmented reality. If you assume any rate of improvement at all, then the games will become indistinguishable from reality, just indistinguishable.”

Here Musk is referring to the exponential growth of technology, the lynchpin of the Singularity theory. If in 40 years we’ve gone from the two-dimensional pong to the cusp of augmented and virtual reality, imagine where we’ll be in another forty, or a hundred, or 400. And that is where he began today...

But today, Musk discussed a broad range of topics from energy sources in the future...

"It's inevitable," Musk said, speaking of shift to sustainable energy. "But it matters if it happens sooner or later."

 

As for those pushing some other type of fusion, Musk notes that the sun is a giant fusion reactor in the sky. "It's really reliable," he said. "It comes up every day. if it doesn't we've got (other) problems)."

To Tesla's share price:

Musk said he has been on record several times as saying its stock price "is higher than we have any right to deserve" especially based on current and past performance.

 

"The stock price obviously reflects a lot of optimism on where we will be in the future," he said. "Those expectations sometimes get out of control. I hate disappointing people, I am trying really hard to meet those expectations."

 

Musk added that he won't be selling any stock "unless I have to for taxes," and said "I'm going down with the ship... I'll be the last [to sell]."

Musk addressed government regulation and incentives:

"It sure is important to get the rules right," Musk said. "Regulations are immortal. They never die unless somebody actually goes and kills them. A lot of times regulations can be put in place for all the right reasons but nobody goes back and kills them because they no longer make sense."

 

Musk also focused on the importance of incentives, saying whatever societies incentivize tends to be what happens. "It's economics 101," he said.

And what drives him:

"I want to be able to think about the future and feel good about that, to dream what we can to have the future be as good as possible. To be inspired by what is likely to happen and to look forward to the next day. How do we make sure things are great? That's the underlying principle behind Tesla and SpaceX."

Within 20 years, he said driving a car will be like having a horse (i.e. rare and totally optional). "There will not be a steering wheel."

“There will be people that will have non-autonomous cars, like people have horses,” he said.

 

“It just would be unusual to use that as a mode of transport.”

But what started off as the latest sales pitch for electric cars quickly devolved into a bizarre rant that among other things, touched on Elon Musk's gloomy, apocalyptic vision of how the world could end... (via ReCode)

Musk called on the government to proactively regulate artificial intelligence before things advance too far.

“Until people see robots going down the street killing people, they don’t know how to react because it seems so ethereal,” he said.

 

“AI is a rare case where I think we need to be proactive in regulation instead of reactive. Because I think by the time we are reactive in AI regulation, it’s too late.”

 

“Normally the way regulations are set up is a while bunch of bad things happen, there’s a public outcry, and after many years a regulatory agency is set up to regulate that industry,” he continued.

 

“It takes forever. That, in the past, has been bad but not something which represented a fundamental risk to the existence of civilization. AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.”

Musk has been concerned about AI for years, and he’s working on technology that would connect the human brain to the computer software meant to mimic it.

Full interview below (Musk begins talking around 42 minutes in)...

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Bill of Rights's picture

Fuck these Billionaire drama queens.

813kml's picture

Battery life will limit the killing sprees to five minutes.

jaap's picture

Maybe the self driving software comes in handy for those AI robots.

bamawatson's picture

this guy got his ass beat every freakin day through junior high school

Dizzy Malscience's picture

 

musk...

sounds pretty sweaty, anal.......

..but what do I know.

toady's picture

This dude used to be unrelentingly optimistic.... what happened? Government subsidies ran dry?

dr kill's picture

This guy has to go. How much of my money has he scooped up so far?  He"s like one of those Medicaid cheats.  What balls he has. Bernie Madoff size balls. And Heebs wonder why people stereotype them. 

Arnold's picture

The World Unveils Apocalyptic Vision For Elon Musk

Akzed's picture

Yeah but they'll all have windmills or something.

Mr. Universe's picture

So AI is bad but self driving cars good? Mmmmm, I want some of what Elon is smoking.

pkea's picture

the semi AI is already killing people just not in the west yet but in syria iraq but soon it will get here...we all know who let the drones fly

CRM114's picture

If he ever had it, he's lost it.

serotonindumptruck's picture

A boy-child trapped in the body of an adult.

knukles's picture

Well at least we agree that the future of AI is not gonna be pretty for the plebes
Especially with the Russians hacking everything

toady's picture

Damn Ruskies.... I'm gonna re-watch "the Russian are coming" to honor our new robot overlords.

Infinite QE's picture

With the universal talmudic joy sticks controlled from Jerusalem.

put a kettle on's picture

The apocalyptic implications of AI are way overblown. AI will replace people at the wheels of vehicles and in certain service industry jobs, which will be a change, but a small one. 

 

AI is just a tool, which you'd think a tool like Musk would understand intimately. Regulations craft who has access to that tool and how those entities can benefit from its use.

Swamp Yankee's picture

Blah, blah blah. I  saw that movie.  All we have to do is cover ourselves in mud and they can’t see us.

 

All we have to do to fight them is build EMP weapons from a smart phone, smoke detector and a pack of gum.

 

Long on wrigley’s.

G-R-U-N-T's picture

"It sure is important to get the rules right," Musk said. "Regulations are immortal. They never die unless somebody actually goes and kills them. A lot of times regulations can be put in place for all the right reasons but nobody goes back and kills them because they no longer make sense."

Err..where would your Tesla experiment be without government subsidies (as you sit atop your parasitic ivory tower), seems to me taking billions of taxpayers dollars NEVER made sense? 

 

 

cheech_wizard's picture

The three rules of AI.

1) An on/off switch.

2) Always have a power cord with no battery backup.

3) Never connect it up to a network.

 

toady's picture

But... but.... everyone breaks those rules! We're all doomed

BlueGreen's picture

Oh for fucks sake, let's assume the linear progress model again. ..... so by that reasoning our machines should be frictionless and lighter than air by now given the rate of change during the industrial age

Pumpkin's picture

Bring on the lake of fire!!!

ThanksIwillHaveAnother's picture

How to teach a computer to be driven by profit?   To have emotion?   Can't.  No threat.

Kaeako's picture

No need. Paraphrasing a famous example: tell a powerful AI to manufacture spoons. Anything that threatens to stop it from making more spoons is eliminated. Including humans. Other way to look at it is endless resource consumption.

Oliver Klozoff's picture

    Musk said he has been on record several times as saying its stock price "is higher than we have any right to deserve" especially based on current and past performance.

    "The stock price obviously reflects a lot of optimism on where we will be in the future," he said. "Those expectations sometimes get out of control. I hate disappointing people, I am trying really hard to meet those expectations."

Economics 101:

Always publish your out.

shimmy's picture

So he wants regulation on AI and warns of the danger of it yet his car company's goal is to make fully AI driving cars.

You can tell he is a libtard with his hypocrisy.

Dun_Dulind's picture

Let the World continue on its pace for solar in lieu of petrochemical -- with billions of miles of wiring, cabling, and long haul copper supplying powers to cities across regions...

All it's going to take is one Carrington Event ... and it's gone in a puff of the solar wind.

What happened with Tamboro 200 years ago?  You're not getting much solar when you go without a summer.

David Wooten's picture

Just stop making lethal robots.

WillyGroper's picture

evil inc.,  no kidding.  1069 companies registered to the address in england.

luis cypher.com...ask any question.

crisis-managment.com, your FF HQ.

GoldHermit's picture

Step 1: build a robot and program it to identify Libbies

Step 2: turn it loose

Duc888's picture

 

 

There is nothing to support the theory that the sun is "fusion".

John Law Lives's picture

Let me guess.  Civilization is at risk... and Elon Musk knows how to save the day.  Our hero.

TESLA_FUBAR

Zhaupka's picture

Mass Media Psychological Operations (PSYOPS) Musk is not an American – not from around here, these parts – Now, (instead of “that being said” meme), is this prediction coming before the PJP’s? Personal Jet Packs and FC’s Flying Cars? and Cars that are Boats that were promised to Every Baby Boomer and how about the pay for 40 hours for less than a few days attendance doing something, or is the situation that First is AI, then Millennial’s  get their promised life time ROBOT and PJP, FC, BC and 40 pay for 4 hours doing something? (nice green tint face pic, though).  Not AI but PSYOP.