MIT Research Scientist Asks If AI Can Become Conscious, Elon Musk Says...

Ever since the advent of Artificial intelligence, a lot of doubts and questions have been raised about its ethics, safety, and societal challenges that it poses. Concerned about the same, Lex Fridman, a Research Scientist working with US' Massachusetts Institute of Technology, asked if AI can become conscious.

Mr. Fridman posted this query in response to the first tweet by Elon Musk's new artificial intelligence startup, xAI that asked users to comment upon the most ''fundamental unanswered questions.''

''Can AI become conscious?,'' he asked. 

Billionaire Elon Musk replied, ''I often wonder where consciousness starts, as we progress from one cell to ~35 trillion cells. If the Standard Model is correct, then quarks & leptons become “conscious” no later than ~13.8B years from start, assuming there are no sentient aliens. Btw, where are the aliens!?''

See the tweet here:

Notably, Elon Musk on Wednesday launched his own artificial intelligence company, xAI, as he seeks to compete with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT. In the tech universe, the term is used as a short form for Explainable AI, also known as Interpretable AI. However, neither Mr Musk nor the newly-formed company has said anything about its meaning.

 As per the company's website, its purpose is to "understand the true nature of the universe". The xAI website also said the Tesla tycoon would run the company separately from his other companies but that the technology developed would benefit those businesses, including Twitter.

Meanwhile, Mr. Musk on Twitter added that the new company's aim was to "understand reality" and answer life's biggest questions. 

The startup is staffed by former researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Tesla and the University of Toronto.

Mr Musk has repeatedly warned about the dangers of AI, having called it "our biggest existential threat," and saying that moving too fast was like "summoning the demon."