Shift Magazine - February 2020 - 30

SOUNDING THE ALARM
Elon Musk on the 'terrible' yet great possibilities of AI
BY MICHAEL MARTINEZ

and transformation leader at EY, tends to offer a more optimisesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk famously served as the inspitic view on artificial intelligence, although he believes caution is
ration for Robert Downey Jr.'s depiction of billionaire
necessary.
genius Tony Stark in Marvel's "Iron Man" movies.
"As mankind develops any major breakthrough, they figure
Now he's trying to avoid a real-life Ultron moment.
how to put the right checks and balances in place," Lulla said.
In the fictional Marvel universe, Stark originally designed
"We need to do so in this case."
Ultron, an artificial intelligence program, to protect Earth. But
Unlike Musk, he thinks the world has listened to those early
when it gained sentience, it turned on its creators and attempted
calls to regulate the still-emerging technology.
to destroy humanity.
Last year, the European Commission released "ethics guideMusk doesn't think it's the stuff of fiction. Although his Tesla
lines for responsible AI," and Lulla said countries
vehicles come with boundary-pushing driver-assuch as Canada and Singapore have adopted simisist features, he has called AI humankind's "biglar stances. EY last year released its own "trusted
gest existential threat," tweeted that it's "potenAI platform" that it hopes will lead to greater contially more dangerous than nukes" and referred to
fidence in the technology.
dabbling with AI as "summoning the demon."
"If we take the right steps now, with trusted
He's taken a more fatalist approach in recent
and responsible AI solutions, and a public-private
years, lamenting that his warnings have gone
sector partnership, I think we can continue to use
unheeded.
AI to do more good that otherwise," Lulla said.
"I tried to convince people to slow down AI, to
"I've always been an optimist when it comes to
regulate AI; this was futile ... nobody listened," he
technology."
said on a 2018 podcast with comedian Joe Rogan.
Elon Musk
Even Musk is coming around.
"It could be terrible and it could be great. It's not
He tweeted that he planned to host a "super fun" AI party/
clear. One thing's for sure: We will not control it."
hackathon as Tesla works to improve its Autopilot driver-assist
Musk has suggested the best option is to merge AI with the
system and eventually activate self-driving software.
human mind. In 2017, he launched a startup, Neuralink, to work
"Just like anything, there's an optimistic side and a pessimistic
on a "high-bandwidth brain-machine interface" and has sugside," Lulla said. "I believe Elon's intent was good. He's made
gested he'd soon release an "awesome" update on the initiative.
a fortune applying AI in the world's most intelligent vehicles." n
Sachin Lulla, an AI expert who serves as global digital strategy

shift * february 2020

https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/ethics-guidelines-trustworthy-ai https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/ethics-guidelines-trustworthy-ai https://www.ey.com/en_gl/news/2019/04/ey-announces-the-first-solution-designed-to-help-gauge-impact-and-trustworthiness-of-artificial-intelligence-systems https://www.ey.com/en_gl/news/2019/04/ey-announces-the-first-solution-designed-to-help-gauge-impact-and-trustworthiness-of-artificial-intelligence-systems https://www.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1224087317364854785 https://www.twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1224195776131272704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1224195776131272704&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnet.com%2Fnews%2Felon-musk-says-an-awesome-neuralink-update-is-coming-soon%2F

Shift Magazine - February 2020

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