Musk, who is the founder of SpaceX and Tesla called for the regulation of Artificial Intelligence (AI) during the South by Southwest tech conference in Austin, Texas, last year. He used his own products as an example of the leaps that science has already taken in modern time. Musk warned: “I think that’s the single biggest existential crisis that we face and the most pressing one.”

Fast-forward a year and the same question was put to Neil deGrasse Tyson and Josh Clark during a recent episode of StarTalk. Answering first, Mr Clark said: “I would say that AI is probably our biggest existential crisis. “The reason why is because we are putting onto the table right now the pieces for a machine to become super intelligent. “It is out there, it is possible, it is not necessarily right there, but it is possible.

Neil deGrasse Tyson agrees with Musk

Artificial intelligence poses an issue

AI might be in a box, but it will convince you to let it out Neil deGrasse Tyson

“The problem is that we haven’t figured out how to create what is called friendliness. “We don’t even know how to define morality and friendliness, but as far as AI goes, it’s an AI that cares about humans.” Mr Clark went on to reveal experts are working to make AI safer, but will struggle to keep up. He added: “The problem is, the pitiful, of AI, we make the assumption that if AI became super intelligent that friendliness would be a property of that intelligence. “That is not necessarily true.

Mr Clarke says AI is learning faster than we think

“Experts have convinced me and the more I looked into it and when you start to dig into it you realise this is really possible. “While we are improving by leaps and bounds, when we started teaching them to learn, AI research just shot up. “There are legitimate researchers working on figuring out friendliness in parallel to figuring out machine intelligence. “But it’s not keeping up and it’s a very dangerous point.”



Dr Tyson then chipped in, claiming he had another idea in mind of the biggest existential crisis we faced, before agreeing.

Mr Clark was speaking during a StarTalks podcast

Dr Tyson agreed with his claims

He said: “I had a different answer, but I like your answer better than the answer I was going to give. “But what won me over with your argument was that if you locked AI in a box, it would get out. “My gosh, it gets out every time. “Before I was thinking, this is America, AI gets out of control, you shoot it, but that does not work, because AI might be in a box, but it will convince you to let it out. “If it’s smarter than you, that’s its job.”

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