Elon Musk, the billionaire entrepreneur and chief executive of Tesla, recently made waves on Twitter with a possible hint of a potential lawsuit against artificial intelligence (AI) giant OpenAI. In response to a post from podcast host Benny Johnson asking if Musk would sue the company for allegedly defrauding him, the tech mogul simply replied with “Wait for it …” The tweet has sparked speculation that Musk may be considering some kind of legal action against OpenAI, who are responsible for the ChatGPT AI project.
In addition to this, Musk recently gave an on-air interview to Fox News host Tucker Carlson, in which he raised fears over the potentially damaging consequences of artificial intelligence, saying it could lead to the destruction of civilization. In March, a business incorporation document was also filed under Musk’s name for a new company called X.AI Corp.
OpenAI is an AI research venture based in San Francisco. It was founded in 2015 by Elon Musk and venture capitalist Sam Altman. It researches and develops AI algorithms as well as natural language processing. OpenAI specializes in learning and using AI to solve difficult problems such as robotics, speech recognition and automated language translation. OpenAI is notable for performing well in competitions such as the ImageNet Large Scale Visual Recognition Challenge (ILSVRC) and for beating the world’s best Go player Lee Sedol.
Mike Davis, the founder and president of the Internet Accountability Project, agrees with Musk’s decision to pause artificial intelligence development, believing that top tech companies are making “monopolies” with “too much power.” He believes that these companies should be held accountable for their actions and that stronger regulations should be put in place to oversee them.
It is highly likely that whether Musk ultimately decides to pursue a lawsuit against OpenAI or not, his tweet indicates that he is taking the potential threats posed by AI seriously. His involvement with the advancement of artificial intelligence technology suggests he may be bringing new ways of monitoring, containing and regulating the development of AI. In any case, we may have to “wait for it” and see what happens.
