Elon Musk, billionaire and one of the biggest advocates for artificial intelligence, claimed in a recent post on his social media platform X that artificial intelligence is the only way for all individuals globally to achieve high incomes. He stated: "A welfare state and open immigration clearly bankrupts any country" and continued: "Artificial intelligence and robotics are the only path to high incomes for everyone on Earth."
Concerns About AI Threats
These statements were made amid growing concerns about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence and its ability to cause human extinction, which have become headline news in recent weeks. A former employee of Anthropic, Jacob Coxon, expressed his concerns about the irresponsibility of the company and its competitors, such as OpenAI, after leaving the company that developed the Claude chatbot.
Coxon on September 8, in a message to his colleagues on Slack, expressed regret that he had to say goodbye to his colleagues and stated that "without international coordination, we will face the risk of human extinction." He also referred to his deep concerns about the "intelligence explosion," which he had previously raised without emotion.
Reactions to Coxon's Concerns
These messages, which were obtained by the media, were published just hours before Coxon wrote on social media X with a warning about an "AI arms race" that could pose a severe threat to human civilization. He wrote: "Those who are building artificial intelligence believe that it may lead to our demise by the end of the decade."
In response to these concerns, Owen Habbinger, Chief Alignment Scientist at Anthropic, deemed his former colleague's assessment as "correct" and said: "We truly believe that artificial intelligence can endanger all of humanity." He added: "Personally, I think the probability of this threat in the next decade is over 10 percent."
Musk's Agreement with Concerns About the Speed of AI Advancement
Musk's recent statements may be surprising, as he had previously supported calls to slow down the development of artificial intelligence. He and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, addressed this issue after the publication of an article by Dario Amodei, one of the founders of Anthropic, who had expressed concerns about the speed of AI growth.
Amodei warned in this article that artificial intelligence could become a "honeybee" within six months to a year and take control of the internet. He stated: "If slowing down allows us to gain even one or two more years before models reach critical capability levels and then use that time to advance alignment, we can significantly reduce the risks that may arise."
Musk, whose AI robot, Grok, made headlines for users utilizing it to generate images of naked women, wrote about this: "Dario is right."
Amodei also proposed a three-step plan to slow down AI development and gain cooperation from regulators, which includes allowing independent evaluators access to AI systems to verify safety practices and report incidents. He announced: "Anthropic is now unilaterally committed to this phase."
Meanwhile, Altman, whose company owns the popular chatbot ChatGPT, wrote on social media X: "I agree with Dario that we need to control the pace of progress. This has been one of the main issues in discussions we have had at OpenAI in recent weeks."
