Elon Musk wants to develop TruthGPT, “an AI that seeks the truth to the fullest”
On Tuesday, Elon Musk said in an interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that he wants to develop his own chatbot called TruthGPT, which will be “an ultimate truth-seeking AI,” whatever that means.
The owner of Twitter said that he wants to create a third option for OpenAI and Google with the aim of “creating more good than harm”.
“I’m going to start something you guys call TruthGPT or a maximum AI that seeks the truth and tries to understand the nature of the universe. And I think this might be the best path to safety in the sense that an AI that cares about understanding the universe is unlikely to kill humans because we’re an interesting part of the universe,” Musk said on Fox & Friends.
Musk also criticized OpenAI, saying it played a critical role in creating the organization, but it’s unclear if it’s doing any good. He also accused OpenAI of training AI models to be politically correct, which he calls “another form of lying.”
He previously criticized the company for going “closed source” and “effectively controlled by Microsoft” in a tweet in February.
In March, Semafor reported that Musk and OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman had a falling out in 2018. When Musk wanted to take control of the company because it “had fallen fatally behind Google,” Altman and other co-founders opposed the move. move that resulted in the Tesla CEO walking away.
Musk also raised concerns that AI is too powerful to manipulate public opinion or even cause the “destruction of civilization.” This isn’t the first time the SpaceX CEO has spoken out about the dangers of AI. Most recently, he signed a letter to pause training on models more powerful than GPT-4 for at least six months along with the likes of Steve Wozniak and Tristan Harris of the Center for Humane Technology.
Earlier this week, the Financial Times reported that Musk has been working on a rival to OpenAI: he has hired former DeepMind employee Igor Babuschkin for this task.
It’s unclear if Musk wants to build a large language model (LLM) that competes with OpenAI and Google’s offerings, or if he wants to boost research in other areas of AI, such as fairness in training models.
But as TechCrunch’s Devin Coldewey pointed out in his story earlier this week, Musk doesn’t need to develop a cutting-edge product to make waves. “You don’t have to topple the market leader to influence events and get a seat at the table; often billions of dollars are all it takes. And that is something that Musk seems to have reliably at his disposal,” Devin wrote.
It’s also worth noting that TruthGPT could be a temporary project name as OpenAI has applied for a trademark for the term ‘GPT’.
