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Authoritarianism is nothing new.
But at least Mussolini and Hitler died. In the age of artificial intelligence, we could create “an immortal dictator from which we would never escape,” says Elon Musk in the new documentary Do You Trust This Computer?
It’s the latest fromfilmmaker Chris Paine, who met the Tesla co-founder while making 2006’s Who Killed The Electric Car?
This time around Paine explores the promise and peril of AI — a subject Musk has been very vocal about. In 2017, he warned that AI could start World War III. Later that year, he called artificial intelligence “the greatest risk we face as a civilization” and suggested the government regulate it.
In Do You Trust This Computer?, Musk mentions a terrifying possibility: the AI built by authoritarian governments could outlast individual leaders or parties, creating a permanent structure of oppression.
Seeing as Russia is already using algorithms to undermine democracies and China plans to launch a Social Credit System to monitor its citizens by 2020, it doesn’t seem that far-fetched.
The Tesla and SpaceX founder felt passionate enough about the dangers of AI that he paid for the film to be free on Vimeo through the weekend.
“It’s a very important subject,” he told a crowd Thursday night at the film’s premiere in Los Angeles. “It’s going to affect our lives in ways we can’t even imagine right now.”
