Elon Musk in 2014: AI Is Advancing Fast—And It Could Decide Humans Are the Problem

Elon Musk in 2014: People have no idea how quickly AI is advancing.

Elon: “I don't think most people understand just how quickly machine intelligence is advancing.

It's much faster than almost anyone realizes, even within Silicon Valley and certainly outside Silicon Valley, people really have no idea.”

Walter Isaacson: “Why is it dangerous?”

Elon: “If there's a superintelligence, particularly if it's engaged in recursive self-improvement, if there's some digital superintelligence and its optimization or utility function is something that's detrimental to humanity, then it will have a very bad effect.

It could be just something like getting rid of spam, email or something. And it concludes, well, the best way to get rid of spam is to get rid of humans.”

Vanity Fair, October 8, 2014