Elon Musk was interviewed by Andrew Ross Sorkin yesterday. One interesting exchange was over the copyright lawsuits against AI companies. Here’s what Musk said:
Elon Musk: I don’t know except to say that, by the time these lawsuits are decided, we’ll have a digital god. We’ll have a digital god at that point. These lawsuits won’t be decided before in a time frame that is relevant.
Andrew Ross Sorkin: Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Elon Musk: I think we live, you know, there is that … I don’t know if it is actually a real you’re trying to say or not, but we live in interesting times. Apparently, not a good thing. But I would prefer to personally, I would prefer to live in interesting times. And we live in the most interesting of times.
I think, for a while there I was getting really demotivated and losing sleep over the sort of the threat of AI danger. And I finally sort of became fatalistic about it and said well, even if I knew it was annihilation was certain, would I choose to be alive at that time or not?
And I said I probably would have choose to be alive at that time because it’s the most interesting thing, even if there was nothing I can do about it [annihilation]