Billionaire Elon Musk on Thursday welcomed China’s engagement on artificial intelligence (AI) safety and said he wanted to see Beijing aligned with the UK and the US on the subject, speaking in London alongside British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.
Musk backed China’s inclusion in the first AI Safety Summit, hosted at Bletchley Park, England, which has drawn leading companies and nations together to agree initial steps on how to manage the risks of cutting-edge AI models.
“If the United States and the UK and China are aligned on safety, then that’s going to be a good thing, because that’s where the leadership is generally,” Musk said.
Photo:Bloomberg
Musk, who was in May given royal-like treatment during a visit to China, welcomed that Beijing had participated in AI safety talks at the event.
“Having them here I think was essential, really. If they’re not participants, it’s pointless,” he said.
Sunak interviewed Musk — feted by Britain as a star guest at the two-day summit — on a small stage in a gilded room at London’s Lancaster House, one of the government’s most opulent venues, which is often used for diplomatic functions.
Self-confessed technology geek Sunak said he felt “privileged and excited” to host Musk, and used the occasion to make a not-so-subtle investment pitch when the Tesla and SpaceX founder said start-ups needed high rewards to take risks in the sector.
“We very much have a tax system that supports that,” Sunak said.
The eclectic discussion took place in front of an invited audience of dozens of other business leaders, the final event in a two-day summit seen as a big step forward in harnessing AI for good by starting to think about the serious risks it might pose.
Musk and Sunak agreed on the possible need for physical “off-switches” to prevent robots from running out of control in a dangerous way, making reference to The Terminator film franchise and other science-fiction films.
“All these movies with the same plot fundamentally all end with the person turning it off,” Sunak said, adding that the importance of physical off switches had formed part of the discussions at the summit earlier in the day.
Musk told Sunak he thought AI was “the most disruptive force in history,” speculating that the technology would be able to “do everything” and make employment as we know it today a thing of the past.
“I don’t know if that makes people comfortable or uncomfortable,” he said. “It’s both good and bad. One of the challenges in the future will be, how do we find meaning in life if you have a magic genie that can do everything you want?”
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
The Bolivian government on Friday struck a deal with protesting miners, but was still grappling with blockades and demonstrations by other workers across La Paz. Other groups are still blocking access roads into the city, which is also the seat of the government. Police on Thursday prevented the miners from entering the main square by using tear gas, while the demonstrators hurled stones and explosives with slingshots. Protests against the policies of Bolivian President Rodrigo Paz have convulsed the Andean nation since early this month, and roadblocks were choking routes into La Paz throughout Friday, the national road authority said. Miners demanded that Paz
The Philippines said it has asked the country’s Supreme Court to allow it to arrest former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s chief drug war enforcer to stand trial in an international tribunal. The International Criminal Court (ICC) last week unsealed an arrest warrant against Philippine Senator Ronald dela Rosa, accusing him along with Duterte and other “coperpetrators” of the “crime against humanity of murder.” Dela Rosa briefly sought refuge in the Philippine Senate last week while asking the Philippine Supreme Court to stop an ongoing attempt by government agents to arrest him. “By his own conduct, he has placed himself outside the protection of
The researchers in Ireland looked at their computer screen, marveling at a medieval book tracked down in a Roman library. They flipped through its digitized pages and found their sought-after treasure: the oldest surviving English poem. “We were extremely surprised. We were speechless. We couldn’t believe our eyes when we first saw that,” said Elisabetta Magnanti, a visiting research fellow at Trinity College Dublin’s school of English. The poem was also within the main body of Latin text, she said, calling it “extraordinary.” Composed in Old English by a Northumbrian agricultural worker in the 7th century, Caedmon’s Hymn appears within some copies of
RSS