Elon Musk has refuted Google Brain co-founder’s assertion that big tech companies are deceiving the public about the threat posed by artificial intelligence.
What Happened: On Monday, an article by Financial Review was shared on X (formerly Twitter), quoting Andrew Ng, former chief scientist at Baidu’s Artificial Intelligence Group and Google Brain co-founder.
The article in question quotes Ng saying that big tech companies are exaggerating the existential threat of AI, suggesting that they were promoting this narrative to drive heavy regulation and, in turn, stifle competition within the AI market.
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He argued that the idea of AI causing human extinction was a fallacy that, when combined with the concept of imposing stringent licensing requirements on AI, led to misguided policy proposals.
These proposals could have catastrophic consequences for AI innovation, asserting that “it would crush innovation,” Ng stated.
A professor at Stanford University who taught machine learning to the likes of OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman, Ng, further stated that some large tech companies seemed to prefer avoiding competition with open-source AI, propagating fears of AI-induced human extinction to support legislation detrimental to the open-source community.
While not explicitly addressing Ng’s statements, Musk weighed in on the debate, highlighting a different perspective.
The tech billionaire contended that the primary risk in the AI realm is not posed by startups or small-scale projects but by “giant supercomputer clusters that cost billions of dollars.”
Why It’s Important: For the unversed, in March earlier this year, more than 1000 industry leaders, including Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, signed an “open letter” calling for a six-month moratorium on training AI models “more powerful” than OpenAI’s GPT-4.
Altman, who co-founded ChatGPT-parent in 2015, also co-signed a letter in May saying that “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority.”
It is worth noting that Musk was previously called out by his “PayPal Mafia” member, Reid Hoffman, for signing the open letter to halt AI trials while planning to develop an AI system that seeks maximum truth.
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