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Microsoft AI CEO recalls Larry Page’s sci-fi vision; Elon Musk says 'He is right'

By · Via Times of India · Published by Everything Blog

In short

The meeting occurred after the first session of the DeepMind AI Ethics and Safety Board, which was created with independent oversight as a condition of Google's 2014 acquisition. During the lunch, Larry Page detailed his vision of deploying autonomous von Neumann probes to explore distant galaxies by the end of the century. Page also jokingly referred to Mustafa Suleyman as a "speciesist" amid their conversations. Suleyman later questioned whether staging these foundational safety talks at SpaceX headquarters influenced Elon Musk to subsequently co-found OpenAI.

Key points

  • Elon Musk affirmed Larry Page's futuristic vision of self-propelling deep space probes, c…: Elon Musk affirmed Larry Page's futuristic vision of self-propelling deep space probes, citing his past track record of accurate predictions.
  • Early artificial intelligence governance discussions brought together top executives who…: Early artificial intelligence governance discussions brought together top executives who later became rivals across Microsoft, Google, and independent labs.
  • Mustafa Suleyman speculated that hosting the ethics board at SpaceX headquarters might ha…: Mustafa Suleyman speculated that hosting the ethics board at SpaceX headquarters might have shaped Elon Musk's decision to establish OpenAI.

Sources checked by our analysis pipeline: 1

Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman has recounted a futuristic lunch conversation from 2015 with

Google co-founder Larry Page. Revealing that the chat took place at a canteen in

SpaceX, Suleyman said that Page envisioned exploring distant galaxies using advanced self-propelling probes by the end of the century. Responding to Suleyman’s story, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk echoed the sentiment, stating that Page “might be right” in his bold prediction for human civilization.

The ethics board meeting at SpaceX canteen

Recalling the 2015 encounter, Suleyman said that the company chose Musk as one of the three independent members while having a conversation sitting in the canteen at SpaceX headquarters during the very first meeting of DeepMind's AI Ethics and Safety Board. When Google acquired DeepMind in 2014, Suleyman and his co-founders, Demis Hassabis and Shane Legg, made it an explicit condition of the sale that Google establish an ethics committee featuring independent oversight representation.

The board structure required mutual agreement between both parties:

- Google executives: Larry Page, Sergey Brin, and then-Chief Legal Officer David Drummond.

- DeepMind co-founders: Mustafa Suleyman, Demis…

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