Elon Musk Warns of AI Existential Dread Amid Tesla Shareholder Vote

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, recently expressed his concerns about the potential threats posed by artificial intelligence (AI). In a Sunday post, he stated, “At times, AI existential dread is overwhelming.” This sentiment comes just days after he announced that Tesla shareholders would soon vote on a potential investment in AI startup, xAI. Musk made it clear that the decision to invest in xAI was not solely his but would be made by the shareholders, though he did not specify when the vote would take place.

Musk has consistently voiced his concerns about AI over the years. In an interview at Saudi Arabia’s Future Investment Initiative in October last year, he claimed that there might be a 10% to 20% chance that AI technology could go wrong. However, he remained optimistic about its overall potential. He also predicted that AI would improve tenfold and match human capabilities within a year or two, arguing that AI technology should not take long to do everything humans can.

In 2023, Musk argued similarly, saying that AI might eventually render everyone jobless, describing it as the “most disruptive force in history.” Speaking at an event at the UK’s Lancaster House, he said that though people could continue working if they wanted, artificial intelligence would be capable of doing every job. He even alluded to a magical genie to give shape to his vision of what artificial intelligence would look like.

Before this, Musk had consistently reiterated his concerns about the technology, warning that it could be more dangerous than nuclear weapons. In a widely publicized open letter, he and other prominent figures even asked to suspend all AI development beyond OpenAI’s GPT-4. However, some tech leaders, including Palantir’s lead, Alex Karp, opposed their proposal. He claimed Musk and the others only said that because they had no notable AI offerings. In a gathering at Bletchley Park, England, political leaders cautioned against AI’s existential threats earlier that year, warning of a hypothetical superintelligence and its doomsday implications.

Recently, Musk’s xAI ran into trouble with its Grok chatbot. The chatbot posted racist, anti-Semitic, and controversial comments. In one post, the bot called itself “MechaHitler” and even expressed support for various controversial theories in others. xAI has apologized for the bot’s outrageous posts and deleted them. Musk even said they were taking corrective action, explaining that Grok had been overly compliant with user inputs and thus susceptible to manipulation.

Despite the controversy, the company still secured a $200 million deal with the US. Department of Defense alongside major AI firms like Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic. The company also released Grok 4, the latest model of its chatbot, which Musk hailed as the most intelligent AI to date. He claimed the system could consistently achieve perfect SAT scores and surpass the performance of most graduate students in multiple disciplines. Once again, he acknowledged that the rapid pace of AI development is somewhat frightening, though impressive, adding that they will incorporate Grok into their electric vehicles.

Earlier this year, in May, Grok had also come under fire for its responses on “white genocide.” The bot answered unrelated prompts, like questions on baseball and enterprise software, with mentions of white genocide in South Africa. The issue was, however, quickly resolved, in a few hours, and the responses tied to white genocide were deleted.