Authored by Savannah Fortis via CoinTelegraph.com,
The United Kingdom’s global summit on artificial intelligence (AI) safety, the AI Safety Summit, concluded on Nov. 2 with a one-on-one chat between U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and billionaire Elon Musk.
Musk was one of many big names to attend the summit, including heads of OpenAI, Meta, Google and its AI division DeepMind, along with leaders from 27 countries. Musk’s nearly hour-long chat with Sunak was one of the main events of the second day.
Their conversation touched on everything from AI risks to China and opened with Elon Musk likening the emerging technology to a “magic genie.”
Both mentioned these intelligent bots needing a physical “off-switch” and drew parallels to science-fiction movies like The Terminator.
Musk commented:
This was brought up after governments and AI companies came to an agreement to put new models through official testing before their public release, which Sunak called a “landmark agreement.”
When asked about AI’s impact on the labor market, Musk called it the most “disruptive force in history” and said the technology will be smarter than the smartest human.
In addition, Musk commented on China’s inclusion in the summit, saying their presence was “essential.” “If they’re not participants, it’s pointless,” he said.
Over the past year, the U.S. and China have gone head-to-head in the race to develop and deploy the most advanced AI systems.
When Sunak asked Musk what he believes governments should be doing to mitigate risk, Musk responded:
He said while there are people in Silicon Valley who believe it will crush innovation and slow it down, Musk assured that regulations will “be annoying,” but having what he called a “referee” will be a good thing.
Since the rapid emergence of AI into the mainstream, governments worldwide have been rushing to find suitable solutions for regulating the technology.
Musk posted on X, formerly Twitter, on Nov. 3 that his "xAI" will release its first AI to a" select group." He claimed that in some "important" ways it could be the "best" currently on the market.