LONDON, England (NewsNation) — Tesla CEO Elon Musk met with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London on Thursday to conclude the first-ever artificial intelligence (AI) safety summit.
During a cozy onstage chat at a business reception in London’s grand Lancaster House, Musk warned that AI was the “most disruptive force in history.” He even predicted that AI would lead to the end of the workforce, BBC reported.
“There will come a point where no job is needed – you can have a job if you want one for personal satisfaction but AI will do everything,” Musk said.
Musk is among tech executives who have warned that AI could pose a risk to humanity’s future.
“Here we are for the first time, really in human history, with something that is going to be far more intelligent than us,” Musk said at the summit. “It’s not clear to me if we can control such a thing.”
Musk likened AI to “a magic genie” that could grant all wishes, but noted that those fairytales rarely end well.
“It will get to the point where you’ve got open-source AI that will start to approach human-level intelligence, or perhaps exceed it. I don’t know quite what to do about it,” Musk said.
Sunak said earlier that it was important not to be “alarmist” about the technology, which could bring huge benefits.
“But there is a case to believe that it may pose a risk on a scale like pandemics and nuclear war, and that’s why, as leaders, we have a responsibility to act to take the steps to protect people, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” he said.
A consensus was reached on the need to regulate AI. However, disagreements arose over exactly how that should happen and who would lead those efforts.
Risks around rapidly developing AI have been an increasingly high priority for policymakers since Microsoft-backed Open AI MSFT.O released ChatGPT to the public last year.
The chatbot’s unprecedented ability to respond to prompts with human-like fluency has led some experts to call for a pause in the development of such systems, warning they could gain autonomy and threaten humanity.
While Sunak was excited to speak with Musk, European lawmakers warned of too much technology and data being held by a small number of companies in one country: the United States.
The interview lasted 50 minutes, and the two didn’t answer any reporter questions, according to BBC.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.