Elon Musk calls for AI regulatory oversight: Report

Twitter executive chairman Elon Musk continues to push for more regulatory oversight of artificial intelligence (AI), claiming it may be “smarter than all humans at everything” in the future.

In a video keynote address at a Chinese government-backed AI conference on July 5, Musk reportedly noted that governments should be concerned about deep intelligence, urging regulators to step in to prevent its misuse.

“I do think we should be very careful with development of, especially, artificial general intelligence, or very deep intelligence. […] Artificial general intelligence is a computer intelligence that is smarter than all humans at everything. That is something we should be concerned about,” Musk said, acknowledging that “it’s important to have some sort of regulatory oversight” on that front.

The concept of artificial general intelligence, or AGI, refers to a subset of artificial intelligence that expects machines to compete with or even surpass humans in intelligence. Also known as deep AI, the technology adds human cognitive abilities to a program, allowing machines to learn in the same fashion as humans.

In the speech, Musk also addressed autonomous vehicles and robots, noting that they may bring a “very profound change” to the world, adding, “We need to be careful about it to make sure it is something that benefits humanity.”

Musk’s comments follow the unveiling of Tesla’s humanoid robot a few months ago. Called “Optimus,” the prototype was first showcased at the automaker’s “AI Day” event last September as a demonstration of the company’s latest advancements in artificial intelligence. “As time goes by, it seems like it may, at some point, exceed 1-to-1 ratio, in more robots than humans, and potentially much greater,” Musk remarked.

China is reportedly heightening its AI development efforts. In a recent meeting attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping and prominent Communist Party members, Beijing stressed its ambitions to lead the AI global race.

According to local news outlet Xinhua News Agency, Chinese leaders debated the need for “dedicated efforts to safeguard political security and improve the security governance of internet data and artificial intelligence.”

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