On his show, Joe Rogan has a very enlightening conversation with Elon about his warranted fears of A.I. and his answer then in 2018.
Elon: …how long did it take for seat beats to be, to be, implemented — to be required? The auto industry fought seat belts, I think, for more than a decade; successfully fought any regulations on seat belts even though the numbers were extremely obvious; if you had a seat belt on, you would be far less likely to die or be seriously injured— unequivocal. And the industry fought this, for years, successfully. Eventually, after many many people died, regulators insisted on seat belts. This is — this time frame is not relevant to A.I. You can’t take 10 years from the point from which it is dangerous — it’s too late.
JR: And you feel like, this is decades away or years away, from being too late? If you have this fatalistic attitude, and you feel like it’s going to— we’re in a[n] almost like a doomsday countdown?
Elon: It’s not necessarily a doomsday countdown. It’s a…[interrupted by JR].
JR: Out-of-control countdown?
Elon: Out-of-control, yeah. People call it the singularity, and that’s probably a good way to think about it. It’s a singularity…It’s hard to predict like a black hole what happens past the event horizon.
JR: Right…so once it’s implemented, it’s very difficult — ‘cuz , it would — [interrupted by Elon].
Elon: Once the genie is out of the bottle, what’s going happen?
JR: And it will be able to improve, itself?
Elon: Yes.
JR: That’s where it gets spooky, right? The idea that it can do thousands of years of innovation very very quickly?
Elon: Yeah.
JR: And then we’ll be just ridiculous.
Elon: Ridiculous.
JR: We will be this ridiculous, biological, sh*tting, pissing thing trying to stop the gods…[omitted in the interest of relevance].
Elon: It could be terrible, and it could be great. It’s not clear.
JR: Right.
Elon: But, one thing is for sure. We will not control it.
JR: Do you think that it’s likely that we will merge somehow or another, with this sort of technology? And it will augment what we are now? Or do you think it will replace us?
Elon: [Long pause]. Well, that’s the scenario — the merge scenario with A.I. is the one that seems like probably the best? Like, like…
JR: For us?
Elon: Yes. Like if you can’t beat it, join it.