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Topics: Elon Musk, Artificial Intelligence
Phoebe Tonks
Topics: Elon Musk, Artificial Intelligence
Once regarded the stuff of sci-fi fuelled nightmares, Elon Musk has shared his chilling prediction for the future of AI – and it could change life as we know it.
The tech mogul has long since championed the use of artificial intelligence in all aspects of his life, from driving to finance, computing to healthcare, and has built much of his career on the back of advancing technology.
Yet up until now, most AI has needed human input to help it along, but this may not always be the case, as Musk predicted that in a matter of years “AI will exceed the intelligence of all humans combined.”
Now, theoretically, sure, this seems inevitable, but most of us will have thought of this prospect as being years into the future, and not, as Musk suggests, a mere four years down the line.
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In fact, he said he’s ‘confident’ this will be the case by 2030.
Similarly, Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft also recently echoed a similar thought, when he appeared on an episode of the Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon, as he said that he thinks ‘soon humans won’t be needed for most things.’
"The era we've come to is sort of the vision that computing was expensive and it basically became free,” said Gates, 70. “The era that we're just starting is that intelligence is rare, you know, a great doctor, a great teacher. And with AI, over the next decade, that will become free. Commonplace, you know? Great medical advice, great tutoring.”
“So I love the way it'll drive innovation forward, but I think it's a little bit unknown,” Gates said before posing a question many have kept asking about the technology: “Will we be able to shape it?”
"And so, legitimately, people are like, ‘Wow, this is a bit scary.’ It's completely new territory,” he said.
With AI now drastically touching many different corners of our lives, the world’s richest man, Musk, also shared his predictions for its growth and the future of finance.
Speaking on an episode of the Moonshots with Peter Diamandis podcast, which was released earlier this month, Musk revealed that he believes we won’t need to ‘worry about, like, squirreling money away for retirement in 10 or 20 years’ because it ‘won't matter.’
“You won't need to save for retirement," said Musk, “In the relatively near future, you could have whatever you want."
How exactly this would play out remains to be seen, but financial advisors have urged Americans not to go surrendering their savings just yet.
"Most Americans should absolutely ignore these comments," said Geoffrey Sanzenbacher, a research fellow at Boston College's Center for Retirement Research. "Musk's speculation sends a dangerous and misleading message."
Meanwhile, Ekaterina Abramova, a London Business School professor specializing in machine learning told Business Insider, that while AI will ‘undoubtedly reshape’ the world over the next two decades, that won't magically result in needing to not save for retirement.
"A future of 'universal high income' would depend less on AI itself than on governments choosing to redistribute its gains generously and sustainably, across borders and amid inevitable social friction," she told the outlet.