Battle of the Billionaires: Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg clash over artificial intelligence
As the founder and head of the biggest social media company, Mark Zuckerberg is certainly looked up to by people. Yet, there are times when his visions or views are questioned and the latest to join that club is fellow billionaire and Tesla owner Elon Musk. While it doesn’t quite seem like there’s a confrontation between the two, social media has made the clash of opinions go viral.
Different Opinions
The clash has occurred over the different opinions the individuals hold over Artificial Intelligence with Musk saying the Zuckerberg’s knowledge on the topic “is limited”. The clash began on a Facebook live stream held by Zuckerberg during which, he was asked about Musk’s warnings about the development of AI. Zuckerberg responded by saying that such warnings are “irresponsible” and “really negative” without naming Musk in person. Zuckerberg fielded question on a whole spectrum of topics from AI development to its economic opportunity.
“I think that people who are naysayers and try to drum up these doomsday scenarios. … I don’t understand it. It’s really negative, and, in some ways, I actually think it’s pretty irresponsible,” said Zuckerberg, who also made a case that people “can build things and the world gets better.”
“But people who are arguing for slowing down the process of building AI, I just find that really questionable,” he added. “I have a hard time wrapping my head around that. If you’re arguing against AI, then you’re arguing against safer cars that aren’t going to have accidents and you’re arguing against being able to better diagnose people when they’re sick.”
Musk’s Stance
Elon Musk on the other hand has been warning us about the potential risks of AI for years now – even telling a group of governors just this month that they should begin regulating AI and that it posed a ” fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization “. He has made the following statement when asked for concrete guidance.
“Once there is awareness, people will be extremely afraid, as they should be,” Musk said. “AI is a fundamental risk to the future of human civilization in a way that car accidents, airplane crashes, faulty drugs or bad food were not. They were harmful to a set of individuals in society, but they were not harmful to individuals as a whole.”
Social media users have raised a storm over this apparent clash of opinions. However, its a good thing that there is an active debate over AI in the public and hopefully this will lead to a better and useful AI development that benefits us all.
Source: The Washington Post
