AI One Of The Biggest Threats To Humanity: Elon Musk

Elon Musk has warned that artificial intelligence is ‘‘one of the biggest threats’’ to humanity. This is because humans face the threat of being outsmarted by machines for the first time. "There is some chance, above zero, that AI will kill us all. I think it's slow but there is some chance. I think this also concerns the fragility of human civilization. If you study history, you will realize that every civilization has a sort of lifespan," he said.

'International consensus' & creation of 'third-party referee'

Musk said he hoped the two-day summit could be used to establish an 'international consensus' and the creation of a 'third-party referee' to monitor technology. His remarks came during a media interaction as he arrived to attend the United Kingdom hosted world's first global Artificial Intelligence Safety Summit. Musk, one of the world's richest men, is a well-known critic of AI.

His intervention came after senior Meta executive Nick Clegg -- a former UK deputy prime minister -- warned generative AI 'deep fakes' may pose a risk to upcoming elections in the US and UK next year. Clegg, however, feels that civilisation-ending threats had been overblown and urged governments to avoid heavy-handed regulation.

Risks to election from AI

But he said there were risks to elections from technology that allows convincing fake material to be created. The event arranged by Rishi Sunak will host discussions with world leaders, tech firms and scientists on the risks of new technology.

Prime Minister Sunak had last week stated that the summit will focus on understanding the risks such as potential threats to national security, including the dangers of loss of control the technology could bring. On the agenda are discussions around issues likely to impact society, such as election disruption and erosion of social trust.

Some 28 nations, including the US and China, have signed the Bletchley Declaration setting out 'a shared understanding of the opportunities and risks posed by frontier AI and the need for governments to work together to meet the most significant challenges'.