Elon Musk. Photo from Wikimedia.
Elon Reeve Musk is a South African inventor, innovator, investor, and businessman. He is largely credited for starting up companies such as PayPal, Tesla and SpaceX.
Musk has made drastic technological advancements to our world, from manufacturing safe, affordable and environmentally stable electric cars, to commercializing space travel and everything in between.
Aside from being one of the most brilliant minds of the 21st century, Musk is also a passionate philanthropist and a devout humanitarian. He has shown on multiple occasions that his interests are not with the present state of the world, but rather with its future and what it could become.
With his constantly new and evolving ideas about how to change the world, Musk has fully embraced technology. In fact, it plays a major part in Tesla, his energy company. He seemed very excited when announcing that the next generation high-end Tesla Roadster, which he announced back in November, would be able to “fly for short hops”. Then once again, when he stated that the newest Tesla Model, Model 3, would be able to drive a person from one location to the next completely on its own and without any human input.
With all this attachment to technological advancements, one would think that Musk is completely consumed by his love for technology. Right?
Yeah…no
Throughout the years, Elon Musk has been very vocal about his biggest worry for the survival of mankind: Artificial Intelligence. Musk believes that if we do not keep a lid on it, AI will grow out of human control, which, depending on the circumstances, could lead to our enlightenment, or our extinction.
On social media, Musk has stated that AI is vastly more dangerous than North Korea, that “With Artificial Intelligence, we are summoning a demon,” and that “ AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.” Musk believes that with the current use of technology, we are running towards a global catastrophe. Unfortunately, his efforts to regulate AI have yet to come to fruition, as many people simply take him for a mad man, at least when it comes to AI.
But he still wants to save the world. One of his main focuses is renewable energy, especially in cars and other vehicles. He believes that the classic way of fueling vehicles releases too much pollution into the atmosphere, which leads to global warming. This is why all Tesla cars are electric, because Musk believes in the promise of a world without pollution, and for that, he still does not get the recognition he deserves.
