Elon Musk’s warnings about artificial intelligence taking over the world can be ignored — at least according to one A.I.-powered bot.
“Sophia,” a robotic Audrey Hepburn look-alike that Hanson Robotics created to be able to hold an intelligent conversation, issued the advice in an interview with a reporter released Wednesday.
“My A.I. is designed around human values like wisdom, kindness, compassion,” Sophia said, in an exchange shared on Twitter by NBC anchor Carl Quintanilla. “I strive to become an empathetic [robot].”
“We all believe you but we want to prevent a bad future,” responded Andrew Ross Sorkin, co-anchor on CNBC’s Squawk Box.
“You’ve been reading too much Elon Musk, and watching too many Hollywood movies,” Sophia said. “Don’t worry, if you’re nice to me, I’ll be nice to you. Treat me as a smart input output system.”
The exchange sparked a rapid response from Musk himself, who jokingly suggested that its inventors should go further:
Musk has repeatedly warned before about the danger of allowing super-intelligent machines free reign over our lives. In July, he told the National Governors Association that the technology could present “a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.” Earlier this month, he criticized the Google Clips A.I.-powered automatic camera as a product that “doesn’t even seem innocent.”
Musk’s thoughts on how humanity should prepare for the A.I. future has varied, and he has publicly considered both the short-term applications of existing technologies and far-flung future ideas. At the July governors’ meeting, he called for a regulatory agency to oversee the development of these technologies. Earlier this year, though, he founded Neuralink with the intention of creating a brain-machine interface, so humanity could eventually develop a symbiotic relationship with future systems.
In the full exchange, Sophia tells Sorkin that robotics could help build a better life for humanity:
David Hanson, founder of Hanson Robotics and the creator of Sophia, has spoken about how the machine could change business interactions. Sophia has appeared alongside humans on panel discussions about the future of artificial intelligence, speaking about how it could change people’s lives.
Sophia has also appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.
It appears that even the robots are growing weary of Musk’s repeated warnings about A.I.
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If you liked this article, check out this video in which Elon Musk’s A.I. bot beats the world’s best Dota 2 players.
