Elon Musk, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and other tech bigwigs are right to publicly raise alarms about possible doomsday scenarios involving advanced artificial intelligence – regardless that the technology is currently “not an existential threat” to humanity, billionaire Mark Cuban told The Post.
The “Shark TanK” host rejected the concept that Musk, Altman and others have been too extreme with their warnings – mentioning there remains to be “completely uncertainty” regarding how AI will impact society.
“It’s not an overreach. It’s a request for people to listen,” Cuban told The Post.
Altman raised eyebrows this week after joining other AI experts in signing a press release which warned advanced AI could pose a “risk of extinction” on par with nukes or pandemics.
Days earlier, Musk suggested there was a “non-zero probability” that future AI would “go Terminator” and seek to destroy or control humanity.
Critics have warned that AI could cause major job losses, fuel misinformation, allow “bad actors” to cause societal chaos – and even attack humanity.
“AI because it is today will not be an existential threat,” Cuban said. “But in the longer term, say 15 to twenty years, there might be simulations of threat creation and responses for things we haven’t even considered thus far.”
“Remember for all of the damage an AI can do, there might be an opposing AI trying to find the traits of harmful AI, attempting to stop them from making the primary move,” he added.
Much of the panic concerning the technology has centered on the rise of so-called “artificial general intelligence,” a still-unachieved concept by which advanced AI would develop human-level cognitive abilities.
ChatGPT and other public-facing AI tools currently available on the market are “large-language models” which are trained to reply to prompts using information available online.
Altman was considered one of a trio of experts who testified before a Senate panel last month regarding the longer term of AI. On the time, Altman called for federal regulation of the fledgling industry – including the potential creation of an oversight agency that may ensure safety guidelines are being followed.
Individually, Musk was considered one of greater than 1,000 experts who called in March for a six-month pause in advanced AI development until guardrails were in place.
Cuban asserted the “real science fiction” scenarios involving advanced AI “will come about 100 years from now,” as engineers and scientists develop ways for the human body and mind to interface with AI systems.
“It’s not inconceivable that we are going to record all the pieces we see, say, write and do in our lives, store it in an AI, effectively being a version of our own brains,” Cuban said.
“Mix that with the replication of ourselves and the AI can survive for us after we’re gone. Insane, but definitely on the 100-year knowledge curve of AI and precision biology that’s starting now.”