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- OpenAI cofounder Ilya Sutskever said that humans could merge with AI in the future.
- But he told MIT Technology Review that he wasn't sure whether he would choose to become "part AI."
- Elon Musk has said Neuralink will help people merge with AI — but it is unclear if it's possible.
OpenAI's chief scientist has said that people may choose to become "part AI" in the future to compete with superintelligent machines.
Ilya Sutskever told the MIT Technology Review that the rise of superintelligent artificial intelligence in the future could encourage people to merge with AI in order to avoid being left behind — but said that he wasn't sure if he would choose to become "part AI" himself.
"Once you overcome the challenge of rogue AI, then what? Is there even room for human beings in a world with smarter AIs?" he said.
"One possibility – something that may be crazy by today's standards but will not be so crazy by future standards – is that many people will choose to become part AI," he added.
Sutskever is currently working on OpenAI's "superalignment" project, which aims to build fail-safes that will prevent superintelligent AI from going rogue. But he's also thinking about how humanity might keep up with AI that is vastly more intelligent than us – and suggested that human augmentation may provide the answer.
"At first, only the most daring, adventurous people will try to do it," he said. "Maybe others will follow. Or not."
Despite this, Sutskever told MIT Tech Review that he was unsure whether he would ever choose to merge with AI, should it become possible.
"I don't know," he said. "But it's something I think about. The true answer is: Maybe."
Sutskever is not the tech figure to have speculated about humans merging with AI – though it remains unclear what that would look like in practice and, as with superintelligent AI itself, it is uncertain whether it is even possible.
Elon Musk has said that the ultimate goal of his brain implant company Neuralink is to "achieve a symbiosis with artificial intelligence," allowing humans to merge with AI so that they aren't "left behind" by superintelligent machines.
Neuralink is a long way from that goal, however, and is currently facing controversy over claims that monkeys implanted with the company's brain chip suffered gruesome and painful deaths.
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Insider, made outside normal working hours.