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| Jack Ma (left) and Elon Musk (right) sit down to talk about the future of AI. Source: Getty. (Creative Commons License). |
What do Elon Musk and Jack Ma have in common? Both are billionaires and tech titans. However, the two tech giants don't see eye to eye when it comes to artificial intelligence. Both men sat down for an interview together in Shanghai, allowing them to compare their views on AI.
Musk's path to fortune took him through several tech companies, including PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and The Boring Company. He also co-founded OpenAI, although he has severed ties with the company to avoid conflict of interests.
Ma co-founded Alibaba, the Chinese rival to Amazon. Alibaba is into online retail and cloud computing services. The company is deeply involved with AI and is an investor in multiple AI companies.
Musk's path to fortune took him through several tech companies, including PayPal, SpaceX, Tesla, and The Boring Company. He also co-founded OpenAI, although he has severed ties with the company to avoid conflict of interests.
Ma co-founded Alibaba, the Chinese rival to Amazon. Alibaba is into online retail and cloud computing services. The company is deeply involved with AI and is an investor in multiple AI companies.
Both men are no strangers to AI, and the 45 minutes they spent together during the World AI Conference show how far on the opposite sides of the spectrum they are.
Musk is famous for his cautionary stance on AI and has even called for it to be regulated because of the fear of what unscrupulous characters could try to do with it. However, during the interview, Ma commented that AI was nothing "street smart people" like the two of them should be afraid of, to which Musk quipped, "I don't know, man, that's like famous last words."
Ma is optimistic about AI and envisions a future where AI would let humans work less, freeing up our time for creative tasks. We should be able to get away with a 3-day work week and live up to 120 years. Robots powered by AI could also do jobs humans don't want to do because they are tedious or dangerous.
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| Musks and Ma's differing views of the pros and cons of AI. Source: Getty. (Creative Commons License). |
However, during the interview, Ma commented that AI was nothing "street smart people" like the two of them should be afraid of, to which Musk quipped, "I don't know, man, that's like famous last words."
However, Musk sees AI taking over human jobs as a genuine concern. He said AI would make jobs pointless. AI writing will be the last job, and that is before AI takes over writing AI. That would pave the way for a different kind of life, but he advocated connecting the human brain to computers, which he is already trying to do with Neuralink.
Ma then posited that AI is simply another tool created by humans, and it would never be able to outsmart humans. But Musk disagreed, explaining that AI would eventually be able to simulate multiple people simultaneously.
The two men eventually found something to agree on; overpopulation is a myth. Musk said we would deal with population collapse in 20 years, not explosion, as some experts have warned. Ma nodded his agreement, adding that AI helping people to live longer and healthier lives could be part of the solution.
Ma then posited that AI is simply another tool created by humans, and it would never be able to outsmart humans. But Musk disagreed, explaining that AI would eventually be able to simulate multiple people simultaneously.
The two men eventually found something to agree on; overpopulation is a myth. Musk said we would deal with population collapse in 20 years, not explosion, as some experts have warned. Ma nodded his agreement, adding that AI helping people to live longer and healthier lives could be part of the solution.