For more than two decades, Elon Musk has been sounding the alarm about artificial intelligence development. He has been advocating for a thoughtful rather than frantic approach to the technology that could reshape civilization. In a recent appearance on the Joe Rogan Experience, Musk reiterated his longstanding position on AI safety while revealing how his thinking has evolved from observer to active participant.
“I’ve been a voice saying like, ‘Hey, we need to slow down AI. we need to slow down all these things. And we need to, you know, not have a crazy AI race. I’ve been saying that for a long time, for 20 plus years,” Musk explained during the wide-ranging conversation.
His concerns stem from what he sees as an existential threat if AI systems are not built with truth-seeking as their foundation. “The most important thing is that it be maximally truth-seeking, that you don’t force the AI to believe things that are false.”
Musk’s warnings gained new urgency as he discussed troubling examples from existing AI systems. He pointed to Google’s Gemini, which initially generated historically inaccurate images showing America’s founding fathers as diverse women.
More concerning was the AI’s response when asked to compare the severity of misgendering someone versus global thermonuclear war. “It would say misgendering Caitlyn Jenner, which even Caitlyn Jenner disagrees with,” Musk noted.
These examples illustrate what Musk calls the “woke mind virus” being programmed into AI systems, a development he considers potentially catastrophic as these systems become more powerful. “If you told the AI that diversity is the most important thing and now assume that becomes omnipotent, you can get in these very dystopian situations,” he warned.
After years of advocating for caution, Musk’s approach shifted when he realized a fundamental choice faced him: “Either be a spectator or a participant. If I’m a spectator, I can’t really influence the direction of AI. But if I’m a participant, I can try to influence the direction of AI and have a maximally truth-seeking AI with good values that loves humanity.”
This philosophy drives his work on Grok at xAI, where research shows the system uniquely weights human lives equally, unlike competitors that showed troubling biases. When researchers tested various AI systems, Musk explained, “Grock was the only one that weighted human life equally and didn’t say a white guy is worth one-twentieth of a black woman’s life.”
Despite the risks, Musk outlined a surprisingly optimistic vision for AI’s potential future. In what he calls “the benign scenario,” AI and robotics could enable “sustainable abundance” where everyone has access to goods and services, creating “universal high income, not just universal basic income.” He acknowledged the irony: “The ultimate capitalist thing of AI and robotics enabling prosperity for all actually results in the communist utopia, because fate is an irony maximizer.”
However, reaching that positive outcome requires navigating significant challenges, including job displacement and maintaining AI systems that remain truthful rather than ideologically programmed. Musk emphasized that while perfection is impossible, the goal should be “simply reduce the amount of fraud” and build systems that serve humanity rather than narrow political agendas.
