Not sure how much I trust AI labs to do the right thing.
Elon Musk
Yeah, I mean, yes, pretty much. Let's, let's enjoy the ride. I think my philosophy at this point because I mean honestly there seems to be just an inexorable progress here in Al and, and in robots that even if I wanted to stop it, and I don't, I couldn't.
Zanny Minton Beddoes
Do you think there's still a 10 to 20% chance that killer robots mean the end of humanity?
That's a high P doom, as they say.
The only question is how much of a grey zone is there between these 2 points.
Philanthropy is always hard to place exactly. When you're a normal person, it's just how much money you can give to charity; when you're rich, you have to ask questions like "will my donation break something?" (Mansa Musa) or "is it better to spend all of my money at a shot to eliminate some problem forever, or put all the money in a charitable trust which pays out the dividends it earns each year forever, without ever fully fixing it but always at least helping?" (how is the Gates foundation doing with all the recent stuff about the guy himself?)
I think Richard Branson is generally considered to be a decent person?
(Richard Branson is "only" worth about $3B btw)
> (Richard Branson is "only" worth about $3B btw)
Yes? And?
> Yes? And?
And if that's how far down the list one needs to go to find a billionaire of good repute, that's not a good sign for billionaires.
If I look at e.g. this list: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_World's_Billionaires_2015 (chosen because it's the most recent one on Wikipedia that's not summarised to a top 10), most of those people I've never heard of and know nothing about. I recognise perhaps a fifth of the names, know little about even most of the names I do recognise, and and that includes the ones (Musk, Bezos, Murdoch, Zuckerberg, the Koch brothers, and Ellison) who are infamously colossal dicks.
Richard Branson, in the UK, is mostly known for being a serial entrepreneur and using the word "Virgin" in all brands even where this is silly (Virgin Maternity Wards, Virgin Brides).