The details of Musk’s first AI model are still a matter of speculation, but the world’s richest person promises that it is in “several important respects” the best AI product currently available.
That doesn’t have to be just boasting. It is known that Musk has poached AI specialists from competitors for xAI, including Google’s sister company Deepmind and Microsoft. In April this year, Musk said in an interview with Fox that he wants his new AI company to offer a “third option” alongside OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard.
He jokingly called his yet-to-be-released product TruthGPT, as a counterweight to the often nonsense-spouting chatbot ChatGPT. The billionaire talked about a “truth-seeking AI that seeks to understand the nature of the universe” and that “hopefully does more good than bad.”
Musk was once one of the founders of OpenAI, but he left after a disagreement with CEO Sam Altman, with whom he has had a falling out since then. Musk believes that OpenAI is too concerned with making profits and cares too little about the safety of AI. He says he does. Critics accuse Musk of a double attitude: on the one hand he continuously warns about the existential dangers of AI, which could even mean the end of humanity, but at the same time he also develops AI himself and believes in the arrival of the kind of AI that humanity will be outsmarted.
Earlier this year, Musk signed the open letter in which prominent figures called for a six-month pause in developing large language models that are more advanced than GPT4, the current engine of ChatGPT.
This week, Musk was one of the prominent attendees at the AI conference in Bletchley Park, UK. There he was interviewed by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. According to Musk, AI can ultimately eliminate the need for jobs.
