Mark Zuckerberg And Elon Musk Have The 'Button' That CEOs Like Sundar Pichai Don't, Says Top Hacker

George Hotz, top American security hacker, said that Meta Platforms Inc.’s META CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla Inc.’s TSLA CEO Elon Musk hold a distinct decision-making power, which sets them apart from leaders like Sundar Pichai, CEO of Alphabet Inc. GOOG GOOGL. 

What Happened: Hotz, who shot into the spotlight by challenging Musk in 2015, saying he could make a better version of the electric vehicle maker’s Autopilot software, recently sat down with podcast host Lex Fridman. 

During the conversation, he highlighted the unique decision-making authority held by tech giants Zuckerberg and Musk, metaphorically referring to it as the “button.” “Does Sundar Pichai have the authority to turn off Google.com tomorrow?” 

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Hotz’s observation underscored the perceived disparity between these influential CEOs and their counterparts. The metaphorical “button” symbolizes their power and control to make critical choices within their companies. 

The conversation emphasized that this authority enables Zuckerberg and Musk to drive innovation and direct the development of advanced AI systems.

Furthermore, Hotz expressed his perspective on Meta’s potential to outpace Google in the AI race. He stated, “When someone makes an LLM [language model] that’s capable of citing its sources, it will kill Google.”

Simply put, Hotz — who made a name for himself in hacking circles when he was just 17 by being the first person to carrier unlock the iPhone — implied that an AI system with source citation capabilities could disrupt the search engine landscape.

Watch the complete conversation here: 

Why It’s Important: It is pertinent to note that Musk co-founded OpenAI, the company whose AI-powered chatbot called chatGPT has almost single-handedly started an AI race. Musk left the company in 2018, citing differences in opinions. However, he has been vocally pushing for pausing AI trials “more powerful” than OpenAI’s GPT-4. 

Musk also plans to develop an AI system that seeks maximum truth, dubbed “TruthGPT,” which seemed like a direct dig at OpenAI’s chatGPT. 

Subsequently, earlier this year, Google launched Bard, a competitor to Microsoft Corporation’s MSFT Bing AI, powered by the same OpenAI technology that works behind chatGPT

Zuckerberg-led Meta has also made some headways, like developing IC-GAN or Instance-Conditioned Generative Adversarial Networks, by introducing LLaMA – its answer to chatGPT and Google’s Bard, among other things. 

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