Musk says Zuckerberg has ‘limited’ grasp of AI threat

Facebook CEO said warnings against artificial intelligence are ‘pretty irresponsible’

It’s rare — if not unheard of — to hear someone question Mark Zuckerberg’s comprehension skills.

Yet on Tuesday, Tesla chief executive and fellow billionaire Elon Musk said in a tweet that the Facebook CEO’s understanding of the threat posed by artificial intelligence “is limited.”

In Silicon Valley, at least, them’s tech titan fightin’ words.

Musk’s tweet was a response to a Facebook live broadcast that Zuckerberg did during a backyard grilling session Sunday in which he was asked about Musk’s strident warnings surrounding AI. Musk wrote, “I’ve talked to Mark about this. His understanding of the subject is limited.” Without mentioning Musk by name, Zuckerberg called such warn- ings “really negative” and “pretty irresponsible.”

He argued that people “can build things and the world gets better.”

Zuckerberg pointed out some of the ways in which he believes AI can save human lives, such as helping to enhance the safety of self-driving cars and to diagnose medical conditions. He argued that technology can be used for good or bad and that it’s incumbent upon inventors to innovate with caution.

Musk has been warning for years about the risk posed by AI, most recently telling a group of governors this month that they need to start regulating artificial intelligence, which he called a “fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.”

After Musk dropped his dig at Zuckerberg on Twitter, thousands of retweets and “likes” followed. Musk followed up his statement by noting that a “movie on the subject” is “coming soon,” but he did not provide details.