Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, has said that the popular AI company, OpenAI, has deviated from the original intention of its creation, which was to be an open-source company.
This is coming as he observed that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is ‘one of the biggest risks to civilization and needs to be regulated.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAi, said the company, whose AI tool, ChatGPT, has become a global sensation, was created as a non-profit to counterbalance the operation of Google. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said he purposely named the company “OpenAI” to accentuate its status as an open-source company.
From non-profit to maximum-profit: Reacting to his earlier call for the regulation of AI via a Twitter post, Musk said:
- “OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it “Open” AI), a non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft.
- “Not what I intended at all.”
Why the world should worry about AI: Addressing attendees at the World Government Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, earlier in the week, Elon Musk said ChatGPT shows that AI has gotten incredibly advanced and that it is something everybody should all be worried about.
- “One of the biggest risks to the future of civilization is AI; it’s both positive and negative and has great, great promise, and great capability. With that comes great danger.”
- “The AI has been advanced for a while. It just didn’t have a user interface that was accessible to most people. Whereas cars, airplanes, and medicine must abide by regulatory safety standards, AI does not yet have any rules or regulations keeping its development under control. I think we need to regulate AI safety, frankly,” Musk said.
- “It is, I think, actually a bigger risk to society than cars or planes or medicine. Regulation may slow down AI a little bit, but I think that that might also be a good thing,” Musk added.
For the records: Musk left OpenAI’s board in 2018 and no longer holds a stake in the company. In December last year when the tool just launched, Musk described ChatGPT as “scary good”, adding “We are not far from dangerously strong AI.”
Earlier this month, Open AI introduced a paid version of ChatGPT as it became a profit-oriented company. The subscription for ChatGPT Plus costs users $20 every month. The monetization of the service started just as a research report suggested that the AI tool reached an estimated 100 million monthly active users in January 2023, making it the fastest-growing consumer application in history.
OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it “Open” AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft.
Not what I intended at all.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2023
