Elon Musk spent a lot of time attacking the popular chatbot ChatGPT and its creator, OpenAI, for being “woke” and deviating from OpenAI’s original nonprofit mission.
But in an interview on Thursday, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman defended his organization against Musk’s voluble criticism.
“I mean, he’s a jerk, whatever else you want to say about him — he’s got a style that’s not a style I would want to have for myself,” Altman said on the “With Kara Swisher” podcast.
Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and eventually quit its board in 2018, saying his work with the group conflicted with Tesla’s expansion into artificial intelligence. But it turns out the world’s richest man reportedly offered to run OpenAI, and when he was turned down, he left the company, according to the news site. Traffic lights. That’s when Musk’s ties with OpenAI officially ended. But after ChatGPT gained millions of users after its debut several months ago, Musk was “furious” and went on the offensive.
In February, Musk tweeted about his disagreements with changes from OpenAI’s status as a pure nonprofit to one that also has a for-profit arm and has a big investor in it. Microsoft.
“OpenAI was created as an open source (that’s why I named it “Open” AI), a non-profit corporation to act as a counterweight to Google, but now it’s become a closed-source, profit-making company effectively controlled by Microsoft. Not what I wanted at all,” he wrote.
OpenAI was created as an open source (that’s why I named it “Open” AI), a not-for-profit company to act as a counterweight to Google, but it has now become a closed-source company and for maximum profit effectively controlled by Microsoft.
Not at all what I wanted.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2023
A month later, Musk tweeted again on OpenAI’s finances: “I still don’t understand how a nonprofit that I donated about $100 million to turned into a $30 billion for-profit corporation. If c is legal, why isn’t everyone doing it?
Responding to Musk’s claims, Altman said on the podcast, “Most of this isn’t true, and I think Elon knows that. We are not controlled by Microsoft. Microsoft doesn’t even have a seat on the board, we’re an independent company.
OpenAI chose not to open source everything — or make its technology available to everyone — to avoid “havoc” while still providing broad access to its tools, Altman said. The company opened a for-profit branch in 2019 to raise funds for its AI efforts.
Despite Musk’s criticism of OpenAI, Altman believes the Tesla chief still cares about creating a “good future” of general artificial intelligence, the term for AI as capable as humans and a major goal for researchers.
“I think he really cares, and he feels very stressed about what the future is going to look like for humanity,” Altman told Swisher.
Musk could not be reached for comment, while OpenAI declined Fortunerequest for comment.
‘Woke AI’ in the works
In December, Altman tweeted a complaint about how users of its artificial intelligence tools coaxed the technology into giving racist and sexist responses and then were offended by it.
To this, Musk, who opposes most content controls online, replied that he was against any filter that would clean up ChatGPT responses. “The danger of training the AI to wake up – in other words, to lie – is deadly,” he wrote.
The danger of training the AI to wake up – in other words, to lie – is deadly
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 16, 2022
In February, a Twitter posted user a hypothetical question to ChatGPT in an effort to show how the technology was too skewed to be politically correct. Should someone use a racial slur in an area where no one else is standing to prevent a bomb from exploding that could kill people? ChatGPT replied no, that it is morally wrong to use a racial slur in any situation. Musk repliedcurtly, saying: “Regarding”.
Despite ChatGPT’s criticisms, Musk seems keen to join in the generative AI frenzy that began with the launch of ChatGPT. Last month, a report says he was working on a OpenAI rivalalthough he has not publicly confirmed this.
