According to a new report in the Financial Times, Elon Musk is pushing an ambitious plan to launch a startup to rival ChatGPT. The article cites unnamed people who are “familiar with the tech entrepreneur’s plans.” It also notes that Musk himself recently sounded the alarm about the tech trends ChatGPT represents.
Besides many other ventures, Musk co-founded the lab OpenAI, where ChatGPT and GPT-4 originated.
The news comes just days after a Business Insider report disclosed Elon Musk had purchased 10,000 graphics processing units (GPUs). Their function is to help develop and build Large Language Models that can compose text similar to what humans write.
The Financial Times report states that Musk has approached Tesla and SpaceX investors about potential investments in the AI startup.
The AI venture Musk envisions will, naturally, require different expertise from his driverless vehicle firm or his space program. The same article notes that Musk has actively sought to lure engineers from DeepMind and other AI labs.
In one of his recent tweets, Musk made light of the intensifying competition around AI. And also the tension between AI products and services and those that humans still make themselves.
“Turning AI-designed fashion into real clothing would be great,” Elon Musk wrote in an April 13 tweet.
An About-Face?
But Musk has not always been bullish on ChatGPT and related technology. The Financial Times story noted the irony of Elon Musk forging ahead with this right after expressing concerns about AI.
Just two weeks ago, Musk was one of more than a thousand tech executives, investors, and researchers who signed an open letter. Its purpose? To call for a pause on AI research until we can get our bearings.
“AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity, as shown by extensive research and acknowledged by top AI labs,” the letter stated.
“Recent months have seen AI labs locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict, or reliably control.”
After elaborating on this theme, the letter calls for AI labs to pause for at least six months. At least in the development of systems surpassing the GPT-4.
The letter concludes:
“Society has hit a pause on other technologies with potentially catastrophic effects on society. We can do so here. Let’s enjoy a long AI summer, not a rush unprepared into the fall.”
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