Elon Musk is one of the first investors in artificial intelligence.
The billionaire CEO of Tesla (TSLA) was one of those who financed the startup OpenAI, which developed the chatbot ChatGPT.
Musk, billionaire Peter Thiel and venture capital investor Marc Andreessen contributed funds to the startup, when it was still a non-profit.
These funds have enabled OpenAI to develop what has become one of the symbols of the AI revolution, which has taken the business world by storm since Nov. 30, the official launch date of ChatGPT.
Since then, ChatGPT has become a darling.
The new chatbot has revolutionized internet search, making Google seem archaic. The chatbot can solve complex mathematical equations, write a poem, write a book, suggest cooking recipes, and more. It provides human-like answers to queries.
The success of the chatbot has started a race between Big Tech and companies which see it as a real opportunity. It's the new gold. Two of the main benefits for companies are that AI will significantly reduce their costs and that it will make them more efficient. The big drawback is that many professions are in danger of disappearing, replaced by chatbots and robots.
Musk Warns of the Dangers of AI
The technology is now closer to artificial general intelligence, or AGI. The term refers to AI systems that can emulate humans -- basically, chatbots or robots that can perform any task that humans can do, and even do it better.
This is the goal that the players in the sector envision. The consequences for humanity can be enormous.
But Musk has warned that AI or AGI is more dangerous than a nuclear weapon, and thus he has called on authorities to regulate the sector. He has turned into a wholesale critic of AI, and mainly the absence of regulation and supervision. The billionaire believes that if nothing is done to regulate the sector, things will escape human control and it will be too late to regain it. He has multiplied his warnings in recent weeks.
"What will be left for us humans to do? We better get a move on with Neuralink!" he lamented on March 15.
The billionaire believes that one of the great threats posed by AI is its manipulation by the companies that are at the forefront of this revolution. He is particularly targeting Microsoft, which recently invested an additional $10 billion in OpenAI, an investment that increased the value of the startup to nearly $30 billion.
"I’m still confused as to how a non-profit to which I donated ~$100M somehow became a $30B market cap for-profit. If this is legal, why doesn’t everyone do it?" the techno king blasted out on Mar. 15.
Microsoft Reportedly Fired Entire Ethics Team
Musk has been warning about what he says Microsoft (MSFT) and other companies are doing to push their agenda through AI. He was helped in his argument by the erratic responses of Bing ChatGPT, the new version of the software giant's search engine incorporating ChatGPT features.
During a chat, Bing ChatGPT told a New York Times journalist that it wanted to break Microsoft's rules for its operation, hack other machines, and destroy the data located in many servers.
"At one point, it declared, out of nowhere, that it loved me. It then tried to convince me that I was unhappy in my marriage, and that I should leave my wife and be with it instead," Kevin Roose, the newspaper's tech columnist, wrote.
"There is no regulatory oversight of AI, which is a *major* problem. I’ve been calling for AI safety regulation for over a decade!" Musk posted on Twitter last December.
The billionaire has just launched a new alert on Microsoft's use of AI. He took advantage of information from Platformer, indicating that Microsoft terminated the AI ethics team during its latest wave of job cuts.
The Redmond, Washington-based company laid off its entire ethics and society team within the artificial intelligence organization, the news platform said. The move leaves Microsoft without a dedicated team to ensure its AI principles are closely tied to product design.
"Microsoft fired their AI safety team?" Musk reacted on Twitter with a link to the story.
The tech mogul seems to be clearly questioning Microsoft's choices. He seems to say that now is not the right time to get rid of ethics officers, at a moment when Microsoft wants to seduce consumers and businesses with its AI products.
Musk, who calls for responsible AI, seems puzzled by the software giant's decision.
"The Ethics and Society team played a key role at the beginning of our responsible AI journey, incubating the culture of responsible innovation that Microsoft’s leadership is committed to," a Microsoft spokesperson said in an emailed statement. "That initial work helped to spur the interdisciplinary way in which we work across research, policy, and engineering across Microsoft."
"We have hundreds of people working on these issues across the company, including net new, dedicated responsible AI teams that have since been established and grown significantly."
Microsoft still has a team called Microsoft responsible AI principles, which is tasked with "setting the company-wide rules for enacting responsible AI, as well as defining roles and responsibilities for teams involved in this effort."
