Elon Musk, 48, expressed his concerns surrounding smart machines on Wednesday, August 28, at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, China. Mr Musk’s warning came after he revealed the work of his company Neuralink in July – a company he co-founded to merge human brains with machine interfaces. Speaking at the AI conference, the SpaceX boss argued computers are already outsmarting their creators in most scenarios. More shockingly, Mr Musk claimed some researchers are making the mistake of thinking they are smarter than AI.

Mr Musk told the chairman of Alibaba Jack Ma: “I think generally people underestimate the capability of AI. They sort of think like it’s a smart human. “But it’s really going to be much more than that. It’ll be much smarter than the average human. “It’ll be like, can a chimpanzee really understand humans? Not really, you know, we just seem like strange aliens. They mostly just care about other chimpanzees. “And how it is more or less and if the difference is only that small, that would be amazing. Probably, it’s much greater. READ MORE: Neuralink: Elon Musk’s ‘mind-boggling’ AI computer has ‘potential for abuse’

Elon Musk: The SpaceX CEO has warned of artificial intelligence outsmarting humans

Elon Musk at the World Artificial Intelligence conference

“The biggest mistake I see artificial intelligence researchers making is assuming they’re intelligent. They’re not, compared to AI. “A lot of them cannot imagine something that is smarter than them but AI will be vastly smarter. Vastly. As a result, the SpaceX founder argued, humans will have to rapidly adapt to keep up with technology. Unfortunately, Mr Musk did not have a solution to the problem and instead, said he hopes the machines “are nice”. READ MORE: Scientists build ‘self-aware’ robot able to REPAIR ITSELF

We will be far, far surpassed in every single way. I guarantee it Elon Musk, SpaceX CEO

“A lot of them cannot imagine something that is smarter than them but AI will be vastly smarter. Vastly. As a result, the SpaceX founder argued, humans will have to rapidly adapt to keep up with technology. Unfortunately, Mr Musk did not have a solution to the problem and instead, said he hopes the machines “are nice”. READ MORE: Scientists build ‘self-aware’ robot able to REPAIR ITSELF

Mr Musk said: “We will be far, far surpassed in every single way. I guarantee it.” Mr Ma, however, was not as pessimistic about a future world driven by intelligent machines. In his opinion, computers are still far from “controlling” humans in a Matrix-like scenario. The Alibaba chairman said: “I’ve never in my life, especially last two years when people talk about AI, human beings will be controlled by machines. I never think about that. It’s impossible.” READ MORE: Self-taught AI solved Rubik's Cube in just 1 second

Elon Musk argued AI is already outsmarting many humans

Elon Musk's Neuralink company is developing brain-computer interfaces

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