In Brief When serial entrepreneur Elon Musk spoke to U.S. governors on Saturday, he urged them to create regulations to cover the development of artificial intelligence. Musk, who has previously warned of the risks of AI, thinks it could lead to the end of human civilization if left unregulated. A Fundamental Risk

As a guest speaker at the 2017 National Governors Association Summer Meeting, entrepreneur and innovator Elon Musk covered a number of topics, including artificial intelligence (AI). During his talk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO and founder urged the U.S. governors present on Saturday to set up regulations for the development of AI.

Musk is very familiar with the topic of AI, as hes spoken about it a number of times. To be clear, heisnt afraid of AI itself. What scares him is what could happen if AI is left unchecked. In fact, he calls it potentially the biggest risk we face as a civilization.

One solution, he said, is early regulation. Normally, the way regulations are set up is a whole bunch of bad things happen, theres a public outcry, and after many years, a regulatory agency is set up to regulate that industry, said Musk. It takes forever. That, in the past, has been bad but not something which represented a fundamental risk to the existence of civilization. AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.

Several of the governors asked Musk how it would be possible regulate an industry thats so new, and he replied that the first step is getting a firm grasp onit: The first order of business would be to try to learn as much as possible, to understand the nature of the issues. Thats what Musk has been doing through his non-profit AI research company OpenAI.

Musks isnt the only initiative with the goal of ensuringAI is ethical, but even if these all fail, the serial entrepreneur has a few other potential plans of action against rogue AI.

One isNeuralink,which would give humanity the ability to keep up with AI by essentially incorporating the technology into ourselves. Another isSpaceXs plan to reach Mars. If successful, this would ensure humanitys survivalby giving us a potential second homein case AI takes over the Earth.

While theres still time, however, Musk is pushing for proactive regulation. Until people see robots going down the street killing people, they dont know how to react because it seems so ethereal, he told the governors. AI is a rare case where I think we need to be proactive in regulation instead of reactive. Because I think by the time we are reactive in AI regulation, its too late.

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Elon Musk: Unregulated AI Could Be The Biggest Risk We Face as a Civilization - Futurism