Elon Musk’s influence on a Donald Trump administration could lead to tougher safety standards for artificial intelligence, according to a leading scientist who has worked closely with the world’s richest person on addressing AI’s dangers.
Max Tegmark said Musk’s support for a failed AI bill in California underlined the billionaire’s continued concern over an issue that did not feature prominently in Trump’s campaign.
However, Musk has warned regularly that unrestrained development of AI – broadly, computer systems performing tasks that typically require human intelligence – could be catastrophic for humanity. Last year, he was one of more than 30,000 signatories to a letter calling for a pause in work on powerful AI technology.
Speaking to the Guardian at the Web Summit in Lisbon, Tegmark said Musk, who is expected to be heavily influential in the president-elect’s administration, could persuade Trump to introduce standards that prevent the development of artificial general intelligence (AGI), the term for AI systems that match or exceed human levels of intelligence.
“I do think that if Elon manages to get Trump’s ear on AI issues we’re more likely to get some form of safety standards, something that prevents AGI,” he said.
Tegmark, a professor specialising in AI at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, added: “He might help Trump understand that an AGI race is a suicide race.”
Tegmark said Musk’s support for the SB 1047 bill in California, in the face of opposition from many of his tech peers, was a positive sign for AI safety campaigners. The bill, which required companies to stress-test large AI models before releasing them, was vetoed by the California governor, Gavin Newsom, after he said it could drive AI businesses from the state and hinder innovation.
“Elon Musk came out and said I’m for it, I want the regulation. I do think it’s not completely implausible he could persuade Trump that AI needs to be controlled,” Tegmark said.
Musk was an early supporter and financial backer of Tegmark’s Future of Life Institute, which campaigns for safer use of cutting-edge technology. The Tesla chief executive and owner of X’s personal fortune has swelled significantly since Trump’s victory last week.
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Musk launched his own AI startup last year and said the world needed to worry about a “Terminator future” in order to head off the worst-case scenario of AI systems evading human control. Other AI professionals have argued that focusing on apocalyptic concerns distracts from focusing on short-term problems with AI systems, such as manipulated and misleading content.
Trump has vowed to repeal a Biden administration executive order on AI safety; the Republican party’s election platform described it as a set of restrictions that “imposes radical leftwing ideas on the development of this technology”.
The order includes requiring companies developing high-risk systems – AI models that pose a threat to national security, economic security or health and safety – to share their safety test results with the government.