Billionaire Elon Musk has announced plans to launch a competing platform specializing in artificial intelligence (AI) called TruthGPT. Musk made the announcement in a recent interview with Fox News, stating that the new platform is a result of his disapproval of the project being run by OpenAI, which is backed by Microsoft. Musk accused OpenAI of “training AI to lie” and called it a “closed source, for-profit organization”.
He also critisiced Larry Page, co-founder of Google, saying he doesn’t take AI safety seriously enough. Musk believes that a platform such as his own could potentially “maximum truth-seeking” AI, which would “try to understand the nature of the universe” and keep humans safe. This announcement comes despite calls for a 6-month pause on developing systems that are more powerful than OpenAI’s GPT-4.
AI can have potentially dangerous aspects, according to Musk, such as the potential to manipulate public opinion. To counter this threat, he wants to build “a third option” called TruthGPT, hoping to create an environment of safety for humans.
He has already been recruiting AI researchers from Google for his venture and apparently has already registered a new firm for the project, X.AI Corp., of which Musk is the sole director. It is not clear what role, if any, the other companies mentioned will play in TruthGPT, but it’s clear that they pose a major competition to Musk’s new project.
In addition to his involvement in TruthGPT, Musk is also CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and recently acquired Twitter for $44 billion. In the same Fox News interview, he told of valuing Twitter at “less than half” that price.
It remains to be seen if TruthGPT will be successful, but it’s clear that Elon Musk is making a strong push for AI safety, and he is one of the most influential tech leaders of our time. This move could potentially shape the future of AI and make it safer for humans by providing an additional layer of protection. Time will tell if this move makes a difference, but its obvious that Musk is passionate about the concept and has put a lot of thought into his strategy.
