If you have no job: “Do you have meaning? Are you useless?”
These are the words billionaire Elon Musk asked an audience of 4000 people at the World Government Summit in Dubai, according to The Sun.
In a live interview with Mohammad Abdulla Alergawi, the United Arab Emirates’ minister of cabinet affairs and the future, Musk was questioned on the rapid advancement of new and smarter technology.
“One of the most troubling questions is artificial intelligence [AI],” said Musk.
“I don’t mean narrow AI—deep artificial intelligence, where you can have AI which is much smarter than the smartest human on earth.
“This is a dangerous situation.”
Read more: Alysha Naples on why “technology is not about breakthroughs”
Musk said people on the forefront of these types of advancements should be kept in check.
“Make sure researchers don’t get carried away—scientists get so engrossed in their work they don’t realise what they are doing,” he said.
And as more and more jobs fall at risk of disruption, Musk said governments will need to take unprecedented steps to protect citizens.
“We will need to have some kind of universal basic income—I don’t think there will be a choice,” he said.
“There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better.
“These are things that I wish would happen, these are things probably will happen.”
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Dinushi is a journalist at SmartCompany.
