Elon Musk's xAI Wants To Prevent A Terminator-Like Outcome By Ensuring AI Doesn't Become Too Woke

Billionaire polymath Elon Musk, ranked among the world's 10 richest men, opposes the unrestricted growth of artificial intelligence (AI) and has warned of a Terminator-like outcome. 

But since the explosive growth of OpenAI's ChatGPT, Musk has indicated his desire to launch a rival "woke" generative AI platform, aiming to understand the "true nature of the universe." 

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Musk's Latest Venture: xAI 

Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc. and SpaceX and owner of Twitter Inc., launched his artificial intelligence company xAI on July 12. Musk discussed xAI's vision for the first time, delving into topics such as Earth's evolution and the fragility of civilization during a Twitter Spaces audio chat. The primary objective of this venture is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the true nature of the universe, Musk said. 

Greg Yang, co-founder of xAI, said the startup's focus will be on understanding and conceptualizing the "mathematics of deep learning," a critical aspect of AI, with the aim of developing a "theory of everything" for large neural networks and transforming generative AI. 

Musk had acquired numerous graphics processing units (GPUs) from Nvidia Corp. to potentially power a large language model to launch xAI. The GPUs are essential for building large language models capable of generating humanlike writing and realistic imagery, similar to the technology powering ChatGPT.

In a taped interview on Fox News Channel in the same month, Musk disclosed his plans for a new AI tool called TruthGPT, expressing concerns that existing AI companies were prioritizing politically correct systems.

According to reports, Musk officially incorporated xAI in Nevada in March. In the past, he had temporarily changed the name of Twitter to X Corp. in some financial filings. But xAI's website clarifies that it is a separate entity from X Corp. and plans to collaborate closely with X (Twitter), Tesla and other companies to advance its mission.

The team behind xAI includes former members of prominent organizations like Google DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft Research, Twitter and Tesla. They have been involved in significant projects, including DeepMind's AlphaCode, OpenAI's GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 chatbots. 

Musk's intention with xAI is to position the company as a competitor to other leading chatbot developers, such as OpenAI, Google and Anthropic, responsible for ChatGPT, Bard and Claude, respectively. Dan Hendrycks, executive director of the San Francisco-based nonprofit Center for AI Safety, will be one of xAI’s advisers. 

The Center for AI Safety published a letter signed by tech leaders in May, advocating that mitigating the risks associated with AI should be a global priority — comparable to addressing societal-scale risks like pandemics and nuclear war. The letter received criticism from some academics and ethicists who believe that an excessive focus on AI's future threats diverts attention from the real harms caused by certain algorithms to marginalized communities in the present.

The Rise of AI

Artificial intelligence rocketed onto the scene seemingly overnight. ChatGPT became the fastest growing consumer technology platform in history and ChatGPT became an unofficial requirement for most people in the corporate world.

Venture capital quickly pivoted their investing thesis to AI. AI has consistently topped every list relating to venture capital investments, and continues to grow despite the overall decline in VC funding. This has converted to the retail startup investment market as well, with startups like Jurny seeing significant traction from retail investors in their ongoing investment campaign. The startup uses AI to help manage property rentals and recently partnered with AirBNB.

xAI: The Good AI 

xAI's primary goal is to develop "good" artificial general intelligence (AGI) capable of problem-solving like a human. During the Twitter Spaces session, Musk mentioned that xAI would collaborate closely with Twitter and Tesla.

The company intends to train its AI models using public tweets and may also work alongside Tesla to develop AI software, a relationship Musk believes would be mutually beneficial and potentially accelerate Tesla's progress in self-driving capabilities.

Musk also accused all AI companies of illegally training their models using Twitter data and has advocated for AI regulations. He has sought meetings with White House officials and emphasized the importance of AI regulation during recent discussions with top government officials in China.

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The Potential For Musk's New Undertaking

In jest, Musk suggested that xAI's mission is "to build a good AGI with the overarching purpose of just trying to understand the universe." In fact, the new AGI platform's statement could be summed up as, "What the hell is really going on?" 

Musk has previously expressed concerns about other companies like OpenAI and Google developing AI technology without adequately considering potential risks to humanity, encouraging him to launch his own platform addressing these hurdles. 

While Musk's AI venture operates separately from his other companies, it might leverage Twitter content for data to train its language model and use Tesla's computing resources. Musk expressed enthusiasm for Tesla's homegrown supercomputer Dojo, hinting at its potential use for training the AI model and potentially opening it up as a service for other companies.

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