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Elon Musk does not want AI to replace humanity, instead he argues that AI needs humanity to be truly interesting and useful.
In a rolling 90-minute audio conference on Twitter Spaces today attended by more than 30,000 listeners, the world’s richest man and leader of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, outlined what his goals for his most new business – xAI. Musk quietly launched xAI in April in a bid to formally enter the AI market. With xAI, Musk gathered an impressive array of experts (most of those at the Twitter Spaces conference), with the ambitious goal of, “understanding the true nature of the universe.”
Understanding the universe as it is, has a lot to do with AI.
“The overall goal of xAI is to create a good AGI [artificial general intelligence] with the overall goal of just trying to understand the universe,” Musk said.
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Musk outlines what safe AI is
The concept of AGI is one that some find frightening as a potential challenge to the supremacy of the human species on this planet, or any other.
Musk spent a lot of time, explaining his vision of what it takes to build what he calls ‘super-intelligence’ safely. It is a method that relies on human survival, not its extinction.
“I think with a super intelligence, humanity is more interesting than not [having] humanity,” said Musk. “If you look at the different planets in our solar system, the moons and asteroids, and maybe all of them put together are not as interesting as humans.”
Musk emphasized that he has spent years thinking and worrying about the safety of AI and claimed to be one of the loudest voices calling for AI regulatory oversight. He also stated that in his view safety can be ensured by a process for AI and the people who regulate it, to become more curious and seek the truth.
Musk also told the story of the origin of OpenAI as part of AI safety
Elon Musk is one of the original co-founders of OpenAI, a fact that he is always eager to mention in any conversation about AI in recent months.
In his Twitter Space, Musk said that he is a close friend of Google co-founder Larry Page. After Google acquired DeepMind in 2014, Musk said there were more conversations with Page about AI safety. Those conversations, according to Musk, did not go well, with Musk having a very different view of Page. As a result, Musk says he knows there needs to be what he calls a “counterweight” to Google and its influence on AI.
That counterweight is OpenAI. The original purpose for OpenAI according to Musk was open source and non-profit.
“Now as fate loves irony, OpenAI is closed source and frankly wants for profit,” he said.
Musk’s hope is that xAI will not stray from its established vision, which is to help humanity.
Notorious for blown deadlines, Musk says AGI will arrive in 2029
Musk stated that in his view it is clear that AGI will happen – and soon.
Because of this, he realized that he had two options, be a spectator or a participant. As a participant, he can influence the results and become a competitor.
“I think we can create a competitive alternative that is hopefully better than Google Deepmind, OpenAI or Microsoft,” Musk said.
While Musk did not specifically detail how xAI will effectively compete against its rivals, he outlined a specific timeline by which he expects AGI to become a practical reality: roughly 2029.
However, when Musk is quoted, it is important to point out that he has repeatedly stated timelines for other ventures – including SpaceX landing humans on Mars and launching a Tesla robotaxi service for owners to rent out their autonomous cars – which has yet to materialize.
It’s still early days for x.AI and there are many details missing. Despite the lack of clarity, Musk said that as the effort continues, he’s open to feedback, which is a lesson he learned on Twitter.
“Like everybody else, I think we’re very open to critical feedback and welcome that,” Musk said of his AI efforts. “Actually, one of the things I like about Twitter is that there’s a lot of negative feedback on Twitter, which helps compress the ego.”
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