Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a meeting with students, made a dire prediction regarding artificial intelligence: That “the one who becomes the leader in this sphere will be the ruler of the world.” During his talk, Putin also addressed the dichotomy of AI when he remarked that it presents the world with “colossal opportunities and threats that are difficult to predict right now.” He also said “it would be strongly undesirable if someone wins a monopolist position,” adding that Russia would be quick to share its AI with other nations. Finally, he predicted that future wars would be fought not with humans but with armies of drones, and “when one party’s drones are destroyed by the drones of another, it will have no other choice but to surrender.” [source]
Putin’s prediction has the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, Elon Musk, worried about AI — artificial intelligence — again. Musk has been one of AI’s most vocal critics, tweeting out upon hearing of Putin’s comments, “China Russia, soon all countries w strong computer science. Competition for AI superiority at national level most likely cause of WW3 imo (in my opinion).” [source]
The one country he failed to mention specifically was the U.S., where companies like Google and Microsoft are putting large amounts of resources into its the development of AI, though last week Goldman Sachs announced in a report that China could soon catch up.
See the rest of our analysis on this and other developments in this week’s Executive Intelligence Summary, due out Friday. To subscribe, click here.
