Musk was asked by Fox News host Tucker Carlson if democracy could exist in a world where AI is smarter than humans, and how such technologies could affect democratic proceedings.
"That's why I've raised the concern of AI being a significant influence in elections ... It's pretty likely that people will use the AI as a tool in elections, and when, you know, if AI is smart enough, are they using the tool or is the tool using them? So, I think things are gonna be weird, and they gonna be weird fast," Musk said.
Musk believes it would be wise for governments to have a contingency plan against AIs in the event of any potential fallout, including measures such as a "hardware off switch," power shutdown of server centers storing AIs, or simply "disintegration" of server centers.
The Twitter CEO detailed that these measures would be useful in case of losing control of "some super AI," for example, in the event of the technology not responding to an administrator's commands.
Musk said the type of super AIs won't run on our laptops or phones, but will instead come from the sort of "deep AI" done in giant server centers of "hundreds of thousands of computers," which would create heat signatures visible from space.
Musk also believes that digital and biological consciousness should not be treated equally, especially if "digital intelligence decides to curtail the biological intelligent."
In part one of the interview, Musk condemned ChatGPT, which was created by OpenAI, a company he initially helped fund. He complained about the AI chatbot's built in restrictions to avoid talking about certain subjects or omit certain information. He also criticized the company from switching from open source to closed source software. To counter it, Musk teased a "Truth GPT" AI chatbot.
Earlier this month, Musk and a handful of other prominent figures in the AI space advocated for a pause in AI research.