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- Judge tells Elon Musk to cool it on the robot apocalypse talk (businessinsider.com)
Elon Musk’s Robot Apocalypse Warnings Reined In by Judge Amid OpenAI Lawsuit
During the ongoing civil trial between Elon Musk and OpenAI, the Tesla CEO’s dramatic references to a potential AI “Terminator” scenario were firmly curtailed by the presiding judge on Thursday.
California Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers made it clear that doomsday predictions would not be entertained in her courtroom. “We’re not going to talk about extinction in this case,” she told Musk on the third day of his testimony. The warning came after Musk discussed Tesla’s robotics efforts and his past remarks about “building a robot army.”
Under questioning from his attorney, Musk emphasized that Tesla does not manufacture weapons. He reiterated his concerns about AI safety, referencing the 1984 film The Terminator to illustrate the risks. “In the movie it’s not a good situation,” Musk said, adding that the worst-case scenario would be AI causing human extinction.
The lawsuit centers on $38 million Musk donated to OpenAI’s nonprofit. Musk alleges that OpenAI cofounders, including CEO Sam Altman and president Greg Brockman, have abandoned the organization’s original mission of developing AI for public benefit and instead profited to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Although Musk now leads xAI, the maker of AI chatbot Grok, he has been a vocal advocate for AI safety for years. On the witness stand, he likened uncontrolled AI to a child that could cause massive harm without proper guidance, stressing his long-standing worries about what might happen if AI surpasses human intelligence.
Despite his concerns, Musk assured the jury that he would side with humans if a conflict ever arose between people and AI. “We don’t want to have a ‘Terminator outcome,’” he reiterated during his initial testimony.
As the trial continues, Musk’s arguments focus heavily on AI safety, but the judge has drawn a clear boundary against apocalyptic rhetoric in the courtroom.
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- Judge tells Elon Musk to cool it on the robot apocalypse talk (businessinsider.com)