Elon Musk to Launch Rival AI Platform to Microsoft-Backed ChatGPT
Billionaire Elon Musk has announced the launch of an artificial intelligence (AI) platform called “TruthGPT” to rival the offerings from Microsoft and Google.
Musk criticised Microsoft-backed OpenAI, the company behind the popular chatbot ChatGPT, of “training the AI to lie” and becoming a “closed source” and “for-profit” organisation “closely allied with Microsoft”. He also accused Google co-founder Larry Page of not taking AI safety seriously.
Musk has been poaching AI researchers from Google to develop a startup to challenge OpenAI. In July, he registered a firm called X.AI Corp, with himself as the sole director and Jared Birchall, the managing director of Musk’s family office, as a secretary.
The move comes despite Musk and a group of AI experts and industry executives calling for a six-month pause in the development of systems more powerful than GPT-4, citing the potential risks to society.
The Benefits of TruthGPT
In an interview with Fox News Channel, Musk said his maximum truth-seeking AI platform, TruthGPT, would attempt to “understand the nature of the universe".
Musk said TruthGPT would be “unlikely to annihilate humans” and “might be the best path to safety”. He added that a rival AI platform to OpenAI was necessary to create a third option as OpenAI had “no constraints” and could cause “massive economic displacement”.
Musk also warned that AI had the potential for “civilizational destruction” and suggested new regulation was necessary. He said super intelligent AI had the ability to write well and manipulate public opinion.
Musk’s History with OpenAI
Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but stepped down from the board in 2018. In 2019, he tweeted that his departure was due to Tesla and SpaceX competing for the same employees as OpenAI, and because he did not agree with some of the things the OpenAI team wanted to do.
Microsoft Corp announced plans in January for a multi-billion-dollar investment in OpenAI, in a bid to increase competition with rival Google and fuel the race to attract AI funding in Silicon Valley.
Musk has also recently taken on the role of CEO of Twitter, which he bought for $44bn last year.
