AI: do we really have to worry like Elon Musk said?

On Monday, June 19, 2023, Elon Musk’s interview by Nicola Porro, journalist of the “Quarta Repubblica”, aired on “Rete 4”. The most famous entrepreneur in the world, called the Genius of the 21st century, was in Rome to meet the Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani and the Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

During the interview, Musk and Porro addressed many topics, including climate change, the worrying drop in the birth rate, the purchase of Twitter and the famous OpenAI business. On the latter theme, the founder of Tesla and Space X has shown obvious concern, stressing how dangerous it is to equip a “machine” with more intellect than a human being.

Elon Musk argues that man is less strong than animals but much smarter and it is extremely risky to create something better and more performing. The lack of Artificial Intelligence regulations is leading to catastrophic consequences because there are no limits and technology is becoming too powerful. Mankind has already entrusted its entire memory to machines, digitizing most of the data, and is now carrying out the same process with logical thinking. Dealing with such a strong instrument is like owning a double-edged weapon, just like with nuclear.

But is this really the case? Should Elon Musk’s words create alarmism?

Being part of the industry mentioned by the famous American entrepreneur, we would like to write our opinion with a more “internal” and realistic vision:

AI is governed by man

We of the Pragma Etimos Team, believe that Artificial Intelligence is able to support human work by becoming a valid ally, we must not understand it as a relationship of passivity or superiority of machines but a tool to support the improvement of life.

We firmly believe that smart technologies if used correctly can make the whole world more sustainable and less chaotic.

AI must necessarily use a huge amount of data that man produces and shares. The elaboration of the latter depends on us on a heuristic and cultural basis of almost 250,000 years, focused on a realistic vision of the future. Only this information can enable Artificial Intelligence.

Elon Musk during the interview with Nicola Porro has repeatedly reiterated the desire to understand the nature of the universe and it would seem that he is working on “TruthGPT”, an alternative to ChatGpt for this purpose. However, this could be more of an ironic and sarcastic criticism than a concrete project.

The need for global regulation

The US entrepreneur said that such a powerful tool as AI does not have a global coordination and no regulation on its use and world governments should be aware of the delicate situation and design guidelines that impose limits.

As discussed in a previous article (click here), we do not believe that AI can be considered dangerous nor an “epochal upheaval” as taken from Elon Musk’s letter, it is the people who must have an ethic and culture appropriate to an increasingly digitalised world.

We firmly believe that it is impossible to stop the innovation brought by intelligent technologies. If used correctly and consciously, they can improve many of the human activities in all sectors, from safety to accessibility, from the automation of simple tasks to ecological sustainability systems.

As in all civil societies, we need a system of rules combined with education to consciously use tools with very high potential. “Disciplinary” is essential to achieve results that benefit the entire community.

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