Elon Musk, CEO of technology companies Twitter and SpaceX, has recently criticised OpenAI — the company behind the artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot ChatGPT — accusing them of training the AI chatbot to “lie”. In an interview with Fox News, Elon Musk announced that he will launch a project called TruthGPT, as a third option in contrast to Microsoft and Google’s AI offerings. During the same interview, he also alleged Google co-founder Larry Page of not paying enough attention to safety concerns about AI.
In order to develop the project for a more safety-oriented AI, Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla, has been trying to find AI researchers from Alphabet Google. In March, he registered a company in Nevada called X.AI Corp. with himself as the sole director and Jared Birchall as a secretary — the managing director of Musk’s family office.
OpenAI is a non-profit research laboratory based in San Francisco, funded by the likes of Microsoft, LinkedIn, Amazon Web Services and Elon Musk who was previously a board member before his departure in 2018. According to Musk, he left due to competing for personnel and not agreeing with some of OpenAI team’s decisions.
Recently, a group of technology executives and AI researchers, including Elon Musk, released an open letter calling for a pause of 6 months in developing AI systems that could be even more powerful than OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4. In the letter, they claimed that AI labs are currently in an “out-of-control race” and AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can cause “profound risks to society and humanity”. The group also mentioned that powerful AI systems should only be developed once their risks can be managed.
In addition, in a tweet Elon Musk mentioned discussing AI regulations with former US President Barack Obama back when he was president. As far as Elon Musk’s remarks on the threats of AI, he’s noted: “AI is more dangerous than, say, mismanaged aircraft design or production maintenance or bad car production according to the excerpts. It has the potential of civilizational destruction.” He has also stated that a super-intelligent AI could “write incredibly well” and have the ability to manipulate public opinion.
In conclusion, Elon Musk’s initiative, TruthGPT, is formed as a counterweight to AI giants Microsoft and Google, as well as OpenAI. With the increasing development of powerful AI, it is important to ensure safety protocols for this technology. Musk’s project is an effort a to instill AI frameworks with a truth-seeking nature, which is a necessary precaution for the development of AI.
