Elon Musk Is Afraid We Might Create Ultron, He Is Now Officially Tony Stark

Now do you believe me that Elon Musk is not-so-secretly Iron Man? The dude is worried about Ultron, for crap’s sake! Whoever came up with this viral marketing campaign for Age of Ultron deserves a raise.

The Tesla Motors/SpaceX founder decided to warn us all about the end of the path MIT has started us on at their AeroAstro Centennial Symposium late last week. If you want to hear all that the brilliant entrepreneur/superhero had to say about the future of aerospace, you can watch it above or fast forward to the relevant bit (about 1:07:25) where he comments that opening the pod bay doors will be the least of our concerns in the future of AI:

[Musk] I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that. So we need to be very careful with artificial intelligence.

I’m increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish. I mean, with artificial intelligence, we’re summoning the demon. You know those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram, and the holy water, and he’s like—Yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon? Doesn’t work out.

[Professor Jaime Peraire] So I’ll take it there’ll be no HAL9000 going to mars?

[Musk] Heh. HAL 9000 would be easy. [This AI would be] way more complex… it’d put HAL9000 to shame. That’s like a puppy dog.

At least our real-world Tony Stark is having his second thoughts before this happens:

But if it does happen, can it still be voiced by James Spader in real life? At least make humanity’s demise worth it.

(via Tech Crunch)

Previously in being afraid of robots

• So this Internet learning machine should be a big no-no, then?
• We’re pretty sure this fleshy, pink crawling robot came from Silent Hill
• The cheetah bot has been unleashed

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Dan Van Winkle

Dan Van Winkle (he) is an editor and manager who has been working in digital media since 2013, first at now-defunct Geekosystem (RIP), and then at The Mary Sue starting in 2014, specializing in gaming, science, and technology. Outside of his professional experience, he has been active in video game modding and development as a hobby for many years. He lives in North Carolina with Lisa Brown (his wife) and Liz Lemon (their dog), both of whom are the best, and you will regret challenging him at Smash Bros.

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