Elon Musk is back again with another future prediction — this time he believes Artificial Intelligence (AI) could lead to third World War.
The multi billionaire and CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and others, made this comment on Twitter as a response to a recent statement made by Russian president Vladimir Putin to over a million Russian students via satellite link on Friday. During the 45 minute talk, Putin made it clear that AI offered the clearest path to world domination, although he promised to share its knowledge with the rest of the world if Russia ended up dominating the AI space.
According to RT , Putin says, “Artificial intelligence is the future, not only for Russia, but for all humankind. It comes with colossal opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.”
And Elon Musk following the Verge article tweeted “competition for AI superiority at national level most likely cause of WW3,” :
China, Russia, soon all countries w strong computer science. Competition for AI superiority at national level most likely cause of WW3 imo.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2017
According to Musk, the war may not be initiated by the country leaders, but one of their AIs, which he apparently thinks will at one point become important enough to be able to make such decisions and act on them.
May be initiated not by the country leaders, but one of the AI’s, if it decides that a prepemptive strike is most probable path to victory
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2017
Advancement in AI becomes become a national security concern in recent years. While United States is widely believed to be leading the charge towards AI currently, a report by investment bank Goldman Sachs predicted that China could soon catch up with the US.
