While nuclear war or an Ebola-like virus remain the most significant threats to the human race, along with crashing comets and asteroids of course, there could be a significant other one. Or so space-rockets-to-electric-cars billionaire, Elon Musk, has identified. According to the Sunday Times, at a summit in San Fransisco, Musk was reportedly asked by interviewer, Walter Issacson, whether artificial intelligence could cause an equivalent apocalypse.
Musk’s reply was to warn against programming a super-robot to get rid of “spam” – that junk e-mail contagion that irks all of us. Musk’s logic is that any such super-robot would decide that humans are responsible for this “spam” and thus, it should they who should be wiped out. Gulp. 🙁
Thankfully, Elon Musk was then asked if he had been reading too much science fiction. His reply was; “Yes, that is possible.” Well, that is a relief.
Ah well, if the robot killers do come, at least we can content ourselves with the fact that it will probably be those spam-meister Nigerians who get it first. 🙂
Of course, regular readers will know that Seradata Space Intelligence’s favourite spam is the one, apparently from the Nigerian National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA), which asks for money to rescue a Nigerian astronaut purportedly stranded on a former Soviet Salyut space station.
It is, perhaps, a piece of science fiction that Elon Musk should really appreciate – or perhaps even finance – if his wits are having an off day that is.
