Billionaire Elon Musk made headlines on Monday when he announced plans to launch an artificial intelligence (AI) platform called “TruthGPT” to challenge the offerings from Microsoft and Google. He claims that OpenAI, the firm behind chatbot sensation ChatGPT, is “training the AI to lie” and that the organization has now become a “for-profit” body with strong ties to Microsoft. Additionally, he accused Larry Page, Google’s co-founder, of not taking AI safety seriously. In an interview with Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson, Musk said he will create a “maximum truth-seeking AI” to “try to understand the nature of the universe.”
The effort to launch the platform is connected to Musk’s recent poaching of AI researchers from Alphabet Inc’s Google. He also recently registered a firm in Nevada for the same purpose, and named himself as its only director. Musk shows a strong stance against potential risks that could be caused by powerful AI systems, as seen when he and a group of experts and industry executives called for a six-month pause to develop them. His warnings also include the possibility of a super-intelligent AI manipulating public opinion, leading to “civilizational destruction”.
If Musk’s initiative succeeds, it is likely to create an interesting competition between his company and OpenAI, an AI research and development group founded by him in 2015. However, he left the organization’s board in 2018 despite investing in the company. At that time, he clarified that his decision was due to having to focus on Tesla, SpaceX and his newly bought Twitter, for which he paid $44 billion.
The Tesla CEO and SpaceX’s does not appear to back down from his plan to create an AI that can potential be safer to use. Currently, he is working to increase the AI capabilities at his company. Jeremy Howard, the founding researcher of OpenAI, shows a positive attitude about the potential for the growth of AI safety. He has also stated publicly that Musk’s goals are commendable, considering the current AI state of the art.
This statement is backed by the competition from Microsoft, which recently strengthened its connection with OpenAI when it invested an additional multi-billion dollars. The investment sparked the AI competition between Microsoft, Google and Musk’s company, a race to get companies to invest in AI in Silicon Valley.
