Elon Musk is working on plans to develop artificial intelligence that will rival burgeoning OpenAI’s ChatGPT, according to the Financial Times.
The newspaper reports that the entrepreneur is already assembling a team of researchers and engineers to work on the project. Musk also is holding discussions with Tesla Inc. and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. investors about helping fund the project, The Financial Times reports, citing anonymous sources who have knowledge of the project.
The move comes amid the growing frenzy of ChatGPT, which Musk has criticized its parent company OpenAI for monetizing. The Tesla and Twitter CEO cofounded OpenAI in 2015, and has condemned the 2019 move by its CEO Sam Altman to make the language model profitable – insisting that it goes against the original plan – which was to keep it non-profit.
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OpenAI’s goal was to “advance digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, unconstrained by a need to generate financial return.”
Musk’s displeasure, together with his calls for AI to be regulated, are believed to be the reason he is moving to develop his own AI startup.
The Financial Times said that the billionaire has acquired thousands of processors from Nvidia Corp. for the new project. That news saw the shares of the chipmaker jumped Friday, gaining as much as 1.6% following a decline earlier in the session, per Bloomberg.
Musk has described AI as the biggest threat to civilization, warning that it may be the end of humanity. Last month, he joined a group of AI researchers and tech industry leaders to call on developers to pause the training of powerful AI models. Musk has also described ChatGPT as a “woke” language model.
Though OpenAI CEO Sam Altman admitted that they “made a mistake”, deviating from what the tool had originally been planned to be, Musk’s criticism is understood to be coming from a side of frustration. Some analysts believe that the world’s second richest man is frustrated he doesn’t have his own version of ChatGPT yet as he’s no longer involved in the high-flying OpenAI.
Musk left OpenAI where he served as co-chair along with Altman in 2018, and does not hold any shares in the company. Altman believes Musk is “feeling very stressed about what the future’s going to look like for humanity” as AI evolves.
Musk has been exploring ways to create his own version of AI. Information earlier reported that he had been linked to discussions about creating a new research lab with those in the field including Igor Babuschkin, a former employee at Alphabet’s DeepMind.
The latest move underpins his determination to join the AI race, creating a version that is likely going to be quite different from OpenAI’s. The move is coming at a time when Musk is working to bring his subsidiaries under a parent company named X Corp. He has already merged his recently acquired social media company Twitter into X Corp.
Musk said last year that Twitter will serve as an accelerant to X, an “everything app” he is working on. It is not clear for now if the AI project will be incorporated into X.
Elon Musk has immense capabilities, both in visioning and execution, a rare quality anyway. If you are looking for those who can talk or write, they are plenty in the Intellectual World, but for those who can see far and still have the capacity to get things done? Only few are available.
You have to show enormous respect to some people, because those who don’t do stuff have no idea of what it takes to build and deliver systems that work.
There are innovators, and there are innovators. Being a progressive innovator is a unique vocation.