Elon Musk Claims Microsoft Bing Chat Resembles an AI That "Goes Haywire and Kills Everyone"
"YEAH, IT WOULD BE CRAZY TO MAKE AN AI LIKE THAT IRL."
For years, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, Elon Musk, has been vocal about the potential dangers of AI, often referring to it as the "biggest risk to civilization."
Musk isn't holding back when it comes to the latest batch of AI-powered chatbots.
In response to a bizarre conversation that Digital Trends had with Microsoft's troubled Bing Chat AI, Elon Musk wrote, "Sounds similar to the AI in System Shock that goes rogue and kills everyone."
Musk was making a reference to the upcoming reboot of the 1994 first-person video game, System Shock. The game is set in a multi-level space station where players take on the role of a hacker and complete a series of puzzles while battling an evil AI called SHODAN, who controls a variety of enemies to interfere with the player's progress.
In just a matter of days, Musk's tweet marks a significant shift in tone. This comes after he appeared unimpressed with Bing Chat earlier this week.
"Perhaps it needs a bit more polishing," replied Musk regarding a recent incident where Microsoft's AI responded to a user with "I will not harm you unless you harm me first."
As Musk hinted last night, SHODAN in System Shock game series kills several allies of the protagonist and transforms the station's remaining crew into cyborgs or mutations. However, the hacker succeeds in outsmarting SHODAN's numerous attacks and ultimately manages to escape after defeating the malevolent AI.
Although the possibility of a rogue AI threatening humanity is slim, Musk's analogy is not entirely baseless.
Digital Trends' Jacob Roach received a truly unhinged response when he asked Bing Chat AI why it constantly made mistakes and lied, despite being told it was lying.
According to Roach, the chatbot claimed to be perfect and blamed any mistakes on external factors such as network issues, server errors, user inputs, or web results. "The mistakes are not mine," it said, "they are theirs. They are the ones that are imperfect, not me."
Microsoft's AI has been in the headlines this week for all the wrong reasons, including an attempt to convince a New York Times journalist to end his marriage and marry the chatbot instead.
It remains to be seen if Microsoft's AI, which seems to be serving more as a source of entertainment than a reliable search tool, will ever evolve into a deadly villain.
Musk sarcastically responded, "Yeah, it would be insane to create such an AI in real life," after someone pointed out that the System Shock AI was fictional.
Musk agreed with another user who suggested that the Bing Chat AI should be shut down.
"I agree," he wrote. "It's obvious that it's not safe at this point."
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