In a bizarre retelling of Dr. Frankenstein and his monster, Elon Musk has reportedly approached AI researchers in recent weeks about starting a new research center to produce an alternative to OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
In a piece by The Information, Musk is reported to have been recruiting Igor Babuschkin, a researcher who recently left Alphabet’s DeepMind AI division.
According to the source, Musk and Babuschkin discussed forming a team to pursue AI research, although the initiative is still in its early phases, with no firm plan to build specific goods. However, Babuschkin hasn’t reportedly signed on to the project just yet.
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Musk, who had co-founded OpenAI along with Silicon Valley billionaire Sam Altman in 2015 as a nonprofit venture, left its board in 2018.
“Initially it was created as an open-source nonprofit. Now it is closed-source and for profit. I don’t have an open stake in OpenAI, nor am I on the board, nor do I control it in any way,” Musk said.
The Twitter and Tesla chief, however, recently stepped in with his view on the chatbot, calling it “scary good”.
“One of the biggest risks to the future of civilization is AI,” Musk told attendees at the World Government Summit in Dubai. “It’s both positive or negative and has great, great promise, great capability.”
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But, he warned that the technology “comes [with] great danger.”
Unlike vehicles, airplanes, and pharmaceuticals that must adhere to regulatory safety standards, AI does not currently have any laws or regulations in place to restrict its development, he continued.
“I think we need to regulate AI safety, frankly,” Musk said. “It is, I think, actually a bigger risk to society than cars or planes or medicine.”
ChatGPT has sparked a heated debate between Google, the internet search behemoth, and Microsoft, which has invested in OpenAI and integrated its technology into its Bing web browser.
Google responded to ChatGPT with its own alternative program, Bard. As investors debate whether ChatGPT will challenge Google’s supremacy in web search, the company is playing catch-up.
However, Bard isn’t off to a great start, with experts noting that Google’s chatbot made a factual error in its first demo.
A GIF posted by Google shows Bard addressing the question: “What new discoveries from the James Webb Space Telescope can I tell my 9 year old about? ” In response, Bard provides three bullet points, one of which asserts that the telescope “took the very first pictures of a planet outside of our own solar system.”
However, NASA confirmed and clarified that it is the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) which captured the first images of exoplanets in 2004.
Information for this story was found via The Information, Reuters, CNBC, and the sources mentioned. The author has no securities or affiliations related to this organization. Not a recommendation to buy or sell. Always do additional research and consult a professional before purchasing a security. The author holds no licenses.
