Musk refusing to fade in the AI wars

Greetings, intelligists!

Today, I happened to read that Elon Musk was no longer the world’s richest person, dethroned by fashion mogul Bernard Arnault.

Normally, I don’t read into this type of headline very much. Often, the title of “world’s richest individual” depends as much on the capricious nature of the markets and fluctuating asset values. It can change from one minute to the next.

At the same time, I saw another headline related to Musk. In it, another Musk venture, Neuralink, announced it had implanted its first microchip into a human brain, a few months after receiving FDA approval to do so.

These contrasting headlines serve as an inevitable reminder that it’s been a wild couple of years for Elon Musk. In late 2022, he plunked some $44 billion (chump change, you say!) into buying Twitter, amidst grandiose promises of returning free speech to all humankind, or something along those lines.

Musk promptly renamed the social media giant “X” (he’d always dreamed of starting a company called X). A roller coaster ride began in which X would lose over 70% of its value, with recent estimates placing its price at about $12.5 billion. That’s a tough loss by any standards.

Meanwhile, Tesla has lost about $200 billion in value in recent months. Certainly, they don’t seem like great times for Elon.

However, Musk, if anything, appears resilient. One area that he has not relented in is that of artificial intelligence. Back in November of 2023, he announced the formation of xAI, a new AI company that vowed to “free AI from wokeness and censorship.” The flagship of xAI was to be Grok, the LLM inspired by the seminal sci-fi novel The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

Initially, he denied that he would be seeking external funding for xAI. Despite this, recent reports suggest that Musk is currently in talks to raise at least $6 billion from global investors.

At the root of this is his desire to take on OpenAI, a company that he co-founded. The story behind Musk and OpenAI is complicated, in case you missed it.

Elon co-founded it motivated by the desire to create safe and human-friendly AI, fearing that malignant AI could destroy humanity. He left in 2018, citing conflicts of interest with Tesla. However, there is more to the story. Some claim that his departure stemmed from his frustration. This line of thinking suggests Musk wanted to run the company his way.

Another theory lies in Musk’s alleged philosophical disagreements with other major players in AI. A famous example is his heated argument with former Google CEO Larry Page in 2015. In it, Musk emphasized prioritizing human safety over AI development. This allegedly led to Page labeling Musk a “specieist,” which has become a somewhat ironic term in the era of the AI wars.

In other words, the AI world split into two camps. In one, there are individuals such as Musk, who feel that preserving humanity is a top priority. In the other camp, we find individuals such as Page, who view the other party in the same way one might view racists or bigots, only for being biased against computers. They argue for developing AI full speed ahead without stopping to consider its potential impact on people.

In this context, Musk appears to be attempting to mount a front of resistance. It’s no secret that the quest to dominate the AI sector has triggered a type of arms race, the likes of which hasn’t been seen since the era of nuclear proliferation. Those in the know have realized that dominating AI equates to untold economic and political power.

In recent months, influential CEOs such as Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman have openly admitted that their mission is to develop AGI, or artificial general intelligence. AGI is a hypothetical state of AI in which it can exceed even the most brilliant human intelligence and begin to learn and operate autonomously.

Meanwhile, with xAI, Musk claims to want to build “AI tools that maximally benefit all of humanity.” Along similar lines, Neuralink states the goal of unlocking human potential by developing chips that allow us to control our bodies and devices with our minds.

Though Neuralink currently claims to focus on helping people with disabilities or medical issues regain control of their lives, the potential impact of this device is clear.

One obvious application is helping individuals who can’t use their bodies. But there are other uses that anyone might be eager to try. Imagine being able to control any device with only your thoughts. You could think of a coffee being made, and it will be done. You can think about words, and they can be typed.

In the future, devices such as Neuralink could dramatically transform work as we know it. They can unite the power of AI with that of our minds. In some ways, they could free us. In other ways, they might make the grasp of technology inevitable and ever-present.

Musk has already expressed that his vision for AI will transform humanity. In November of 2023, he expressed his dream of a future in which humans will no longer need jobs because AI will be able to do virtually everything for us. It is both a frightening and a thrilling prospect.

Up to now, Musk has been one to put his money where his mouth is. Love him or hate him, he has managed to launch a disruptive electric car company in a market that many thought impossible to enter. He has launched thousands of satellites into space, using SpaceX to provide internet for parts of the world without any other way of getting online. And he keeps launching rockets into space, even though they keep exploding (still impressive, I couldn’t even make a potato cannon).

It’s probably a good idea to avoid putting any single individual on a pedestal. Humans, no matter how great, always have their flaws. But we are currently living in scary times. AI is being developed at breakneck speed. There are some major players in the sector whose only interests are dominance and profit.

If Musk truly wishes to prioritize the safety and well-being of humans, then his efforts are more than welcome. There is little doubt that 2024 will witness further developments in AI technology. What is yet to be seen is if Musk will mount a viable challenge to giants such as OpenAI, Google, Meta, and Microsoft. And, if he manages to challenge them, whether he will remain faithful to his human-centered promises.

That’s all for today, folks. Stay tuned in for more AI and technology news this week!

Joaquin

intelligist.ai