Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk clash over artificial intelligence

CTV News Channel: 'Really exciting technology' Rose Behar, senior reporter with MobileSyrup and Carmi Levy, CTV Tech Analyst, weigh in on new robot technology, Microsoft Paint and more.

Billionaire CEOs Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are trading jabs online over the future of artificial intelligence.

In a Facebook Live broadcast from his backyard on Sunday, Zuckerberg, the social media network’s CEO, suggested that Musk is “irresponsible” for highlighting the dangers of AI.

Musk, the entrepreneur behind SpaceX and Tesla Inc., responded on Twitter by saying that Zuckerberg’s “understanding of the subject is limited.”

In what started out as a casual livestream of Zuckerberg slow cooking a brisket in his backyard, chatting about grilling and Sunday family rituals, he fielded questions from viewers on various topics, including philanthropy and the evolution of technology.

One viewer wrote that he recently watched an interview in which Elon Musk said that AI was his biggest fear for the future. The viewer asked Zuckerberg for his thoughts on AI.

“I have pretty strong opinions on this. I’m really optimistic,” Zuckerberg replied. “I think you can build things and the world gets better. With AI especially, I’m really optimistic. I think that people who are naysayers and kind of try to drum up these doomsday scenarios…I don’t understand it. It’s really negative and in some ways I actually think it’s pretty irresponsible.”

In response to an article about Zuckerberg’s comments, Musk tweeted: “I’ve talked to Mark about this. His understanding of the subject is limited.”

When someone on Twitter told Musk that he should argue his case in “a well written blog piece,” he responded with: “Movie on the subject coming soon,” without elaborating.

Even though Musk’s company Tesla is at the forefront of autonomous driving technology, he has issued multiple dire warnings about artificial intelligence in the past. More recently, he said AI poses “a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization.”

Zuckerberg said on Sunday that he strongly believes AI will improve and save human lives in the future, especially when it comes to health-care technology and self-driving cars.