He is one of the most intelligent men on the planet and has been a pioneer in the tech space for more than a decade. Speaking at the World Government Summit in Dubai, Elon Musk — the co-founder of OpenAI — talked about ChatGPT and AI’s place as a potential risk to civilization.
CNBC reported the appearance that saw Musk discuss the development of artificial intelligence. Calling it “one of the biggest risks to the future of civilization,” in his comments, and how ChatGPT has divulged to the world how advanced the technology has been.
Musk Opens Up About ChatGPT Craze
Over the past month, ChatGPT has seemingly taken over the tech world. The highly advanced generative AI has become one of the fastest-growing consumer apps ever released. Moreover, seemingly every industry is trying to understand how best to utilize the technology, and how best to protect themselves from it.
Speaking at a Summit in Dubai, Elon Musk, the co-founder of OpenAI, talked about ChatGPT and AI’s potential risk to civilization. “It’s both positive and negative and has great promise, great capability,” Musk told attendees. Conversely, warning, “with that comes great danger.”
The Twitter CEO was asked about the advanced ChatGPT technology that has become a viral sensation. Musk stated that the program, “has illustrated to people just how advanced AI has become,” in his statement. Adding, “The AI has been advanced for a while. It just didn’t have a user interface that was accessible to most people.”
As the discourse often does, the conversation shifted to regulatory concerns about AI. A sentiment that Musk seems to agree strongly with. “I think we need to regulate AI safety, frankly,” the Tesla founder stated. “It is, I think, actually a bigger risk to society than cars or places or medicine.” Therafter stating regulatory action “may slow down AI a little bit, but I think that might also be a good thing,” Musk remarked.
Musk’s Involvement
Alternatively, Musk discussed formerly being a part of the research firm that created the program, where he opened up about their transition. “Initially it was created as an open-source nonprofit. Now it’s closed-source and for-profit. I don’t have an open stake in OpenAI, nor am I on the board, nor do I control it in any way.”
Additionally, Musk noted the reasoning behind his development of OpenAI, to begin with, was to combat low standards of safety from other tech companies. Stating the company began because, “Google is not paying enough attention to AI safety.” Interestingly, Google has already unveiled its ChatGPT competitor to mixed reviews.