It is impossible to understand what is going through the mind of Elon Musk. The histrionic South African entrepreneur and patron of Tesla, the world’s most capitalised car manufacturer, of Twitter and of an increasing number of large and small companies operating in the most diverse sectors.
From the space economy to biotech with Neuralink, passing through… artificial intelligence.
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Musk and the anti-artificial intelligence appeal
That same artificial intelligence that Musk himself recently called for careful study. Thus slowing down the development of new versions of it. Because it could represent a danger with unknown contours. In fact, the former startupper is among the weighty names in the so-called ‘anti ChatGPT’ manifesto.
The demand of the signatories of what the press has dubbed the ‘anti-GPT manifesto’ is for a pause of at least six months of all activities of the most powerful GPT-4 AI labs. ‘This pause should be public and verifiable and include all key players. If such a pause cannot be implemented quickly, governments should step in and institute a moratorium’.
In 2019, Musk and Alibaba Founder Jack Ma had been the protagonists of a public chat in Shanghai. During which the South African entrepreneur had expressed all doubts about bleak future scenarios in which AI will be increasingly powerful.
The participation in ChatGPT
And yet, it was Musk himself, together with Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, who, thanks to the success of ChatGPT, gave birth to the most famous (at times even infamous) software house in the artificial intelligence sector today.
There is, however, one fact that needs to be pointed out. And which probably does not make the entrepreneur sleep at night. As of 2018, Musk no longer has any shares in OpenAI.
The matter has never been fully clarified. But it can be said with a reasonable degree of accuracy that Musk had disposed of his shares prior to the latest maxi investments of the Redmond House in the field of artificial intelligence.
The new, mysterious start-up
Even Musk gets it wrong from time to time. More than the deal falling through, the South African entrepreneur is probably burnt by the fact that he was left out of the game at the time. And he finds himself once again in the chase, a role he has never liked.
But at the moment, since he is the sole director of X.AI, he has to try to catch up with the others. So far, if one thinks of Tesla’s Autopilot, it cannot be said that the sector is one in which the entrepreneur has been at his best.
And of course, we can’t exclude that the artificial intelligence algorithms developed by the software house will also be exploited by the other companies in Musk’s portfolio. The new company was practically secret until several newspapers documented its formation in the US state of Nevada.
We still know very little about the start-up. The name, however, suggests that the company should deal with artificial intelligence. So while Elon Musk adhered to the manifesto to curb ChatGpt, did he quietly set up his own reality?
