On Saturday, Elon Musk hosted the Ahead of the Curve panel at the Summer Meeting of the National Governors Association (NGA) in Rhode Island. The CEO talked about the threat of artificial intelligence, upcoming Gigafactories, and Donald Trump at the encounter.
Also over the weekend, the entrepreneur launched a cryptic website named x.com after buying back the domain from PayPal a couple of days ago. Musk promised more details about the project the following day, and many have been left puzzled by the announcement.
Out of Musk’s several ventures, Tesla and the Boring Company have been the most active as of late, with the automaker doubling down production of the Model 3 and the tunneling startup finishing the first leg of an underground network in Los Angeles.
AI regulation is paramount before it is too late
Among the many topics that Musk touched throughout his address to U.S. governors, the one that stood out the most and was strongly emphasized was artificial intelligence as a threat.
The executive called for “proactive regulation” instead of reactive, painting a scenario in which “robots going down the street killing people” would already be too late to take on the issue.
Musk has had increasing concerns about the technology for a long time, and he himself is taking the matter into his own hands from different perspectives. One of them, Neuralink, was revealed earlier this year as an initiative that seeks to enhance human capacities enough to match those of future machines.
Excited to announce the launch of https://t.co/J6TuRWIQAA! It's a little verbose right now, but that will be fixed tomorrow.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 14, 2017
SpaceX, on the other hand, also has the underlying purpose of serving as a Plan Z in case everything goes south and AI goes rogue. The plan to start a human colony on Mars responds, partially, to those fears.
Other than that, the billionaire said the Paris Accord was “super important” and that it was still worth the try to work alongside President Donald Trump up until the point he pulled the U.S. out of the agreement.
Musk said as well that two to three Gigafactories are coming to the U.S. over the next few years, creating as many as 10,000 jobs in each location, and that having a human-driven car in 20 years will be like riding a horse nowadays.
What might be behind Elon Musk’s x.com?
People have been having a blast guessing what Elon Musk’s next project will be after he announced x.com was up and running. Last week, he thanked PayPal for letting them buy back the domain for an undisclosed sum, although many speculate it might easily be in the eight-figure range.
The head of Tesla said the domain held “great sentimental value” to him, and as close to his heart as it is, so is the purpose of the new website. If you visit x.com, you will see only a white page with a letter x on the top left corner.
Many have speculated it will be a hub for a SpaceX-related announcement or a Model X dedicated site, but for the time being we are all none the wiser about x.com. Musk said to “stay tuned” for more information soon.
Source: NGA
