In a recent interview on the Joe Rogan podcast, Elon Musk stated there is "only a 20% chance of annihilation" concerning AI. He maintains that AI will surpass human intelligence and pose an existential threat. He explained, "I always thought AI was going to be way smarter than humans and an existential risk. And that's turning out to be true. " Musk adopts an optimistic approach towards AI, suggesting an 80% likelihood of a positive outcome. This isn't the first time Musk has mentioned this potential for human extinction, although he has previously estimated the risk to be between 10% and 20%. In the interview, he also predicted that AI could outsmart humans in a year or two, forecasting that by 2029 or 2030, AI will achieve a level of intelligence greater than that of all humans combined. While Musk’s timeline has evolved, with previous predictions suggesting that AI might surpass human intelligence by the end of 2025, his core beliefs regarding AI’s trajectory remain unchanged.

"I always thought AI was going to be way smarter than humans and an existential risk, and that's turning out to be true, " he reiterated. Others in the AI field share similar apprehensions about the potential for AI to cause human extinction. Deep learning expert Geoffrey Hinton has estimated a 10% chance of this occurring within the next 30 years. In contrast, AI safety researcher Roman Yampolskiy has suggested a staggering probability of 99. 999999% for "doom. " Despite his fears regarding AI's impact on humanity, Musk revealed his initial motivation for getting involved with the technology was to establish a "non-profit open source AI" that would be "the opposite of Google. " He was one of the eleven cofounders of OpenAI, from which he later distanced himself. Musk initiated two lawsuits against OpenAI last year, the first of which he dropped. In the second lawsuit, his legal team claims that OpenAI "betrayed" its mission by transitioning to a for-profit model and partnering with Microsoft. During the Rogan conversation, Musk expressed his dissatisfaction with the developments at OpenAI, which led him to create Grok, a "maximally truth-seeking AI, " even if it addresses politically incorrect topics. His company, xAI, has developed a chatbot capable of discussing issues like the implications of misgendering Caitlyn Jenner to avert a nuclear catastrophe or the possibility of being racist towards white individuals. Ultimately, Musk sees the most probable outcome of advancements in AI as "awesome. " "I think it's going to be either super awesome or super bad, " he stated, emphasizing that he doesn't envision any middle ground.