Killer robots? Musk and Zuckerberg escalate row over dangers of AI

Tech billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have entered into a public squabble about artificial intelligence in which Musk described the Facebook CEO's knowledge of the field as "limited". The groundwork for the world's nerdiest fight was laid by Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, earlier this month, when he pushed again for the proactive regulation of artificial intelligence because he believes it poses a "fundamental risk to the existence of civilization". Musk told a gathering of US governors this month that the potential dangers are not so imaginary, and that they should move to regulate AI. "I keep sounding the alarm bell, but until people see robots going down the street killing people, they don't know how to react, because it seems so ethereal," he said. Musk, who has been issuing warnings like these for years now, is concerned that humans will become second-class citizens in a future dominated by artificial intelligence – or that we'll face a Terminator-style robot uprising. Enter Zuckerberg, who on Sunday denounced these types of warnings as "pretty irresponsible". Zuckerberg made the comments while taking questions during a Facebook Live broadcast from his Palo Alto home.