Elon Musk, businessman and multibillion engineer, founder of Space X and director of TelsaMotors is a major figure in projects concerning renewable energy, the Internet, artificial intelligence and the conquest of space.
He has already expressed reservations about artificial intelligence, expressing his main fear that this does not “put an end to the human race”.
Interviewed last week by the scientific blog, Wait but Why, on his lack of involvement in the “quest to kill death” and participation in genetic handling, which fuels the transhumanistSilicon Valley to such an extent, he stated that he was not involved because he “cannot see how to prevent the Hitler problem”.
“This is not a technical battle but a moral one,” he pointed out. “Hitler was obsessed with creating the ‘Superhuman’ and consequently genetic cleansing”. He claims that “We are motivated by the same obsessions” when it comes to genome handling.
We ask ourselves “what makes the perfect human being” and how can we obtain this perfection by “editing genes” and “fashioning humanity”. Before long this will lead to “problems and clouding from an ethical standpoint, especially when undesirable information is eliminated”.
How can we avoid this problem? “I don’t know,” he replied when asked, “We definitely all agree that it would be a good thing to get rid of Huntington’s disease but do we want to manipulate our genes to grow old more slowly or to eliminate autism?”
Business Insider (Kevin Loria) 11/06/2015