By
Bena Ilyas
April 23rd, 2024
Tesla’s Elon Musk touted TruthGPT as a “maximum truth-seeking” initiative that is “the best path to safety”.
Elon Musk seeks to launch an artificial intelligence (AI) platform called TruthGPT to “understand the nature of the universe”. In an announcement during a media session yesterday, the Tesla CEO described the AI as a “maximum truth-seeking” initiative. Furthermore, Elon Musk also expects TruthGPT to rival the wildly popular chatbot ChatGPT in the emerging era of AI-enabled technology.
As a large language model (LLM), Musk believes that TruthGPT pushes back against what he deems “left-wing” bias in the industry. In addition, the Tesla boss views the upcoming AI as “the best path to safety” because it would not “annihilate humans”. Musk says humans “are an interesting part of the universe”.
Elon Musk Suggests TruthGPT Would Right Wrongs of ‘Politically Correct’ AI
In the media session, Musk told Fox anchor Tucker Carlson that the goal of TruthGPT is to counter the liberal bias of ChatGPT. In the outspoken billionaire’s opinion, the OpenAI creation is the brainchild of left-wing experts who train it to lie. Furthermore, he worried that ChatGPT was created to be “politically correct”, suggesting it could sometimes undermine integrity for acceptance.
Meanwhile, Carlson also expressed concern about ChatGPT and his perceived foreboding from integrating the chatbot into everyday life. He believes the OpenAI chatbot could “alter our understanding of reality and do so in a really dishonest way”. Furthermore, the Fox anchor pointed at the underlying disingenuity in the popular AI mechanism and how it could “turn us all into slaves”.
Carlson also noted that Musk initially helped fund the development of ChatGPT to “control it” but was unable to. The TV host further stated:
“Effectively, that was taken away from [Musk], and now you have it as a commercial product owned by Microsoft and Google. But his position has never changed, which is if we don’t put the brakes on this, it could end up destroying everything that we have. This is as dangerous as nuclear weapons.”
Musk also previously described ChatGPT and other similar AI tech as more dangerous than cars and rockets. As he put it:
“AI is more dangerous than, say, mismanaged aircraft design or production maintenance or bad car production in the sense that it has the potential, however small one may regard that probability, but it is not trivial; it has the potential of civilizational destruction.”
TruthGPT Development Timeline Remains Shrouded in Mystery
Musk did not disclose how far along the development of TruthGPT is or when he intends to launch the service. However, the Tesla chief executive has been skeptical about AI technology for many years and has been dismissive of other tech leaders. According to Musk, prominent tech personalities such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg possess a “limited” understanding of the field.
Artificial Intelligence technology conceptualization and adoption have been on the rapid ascent since ChatGPT’s launch late last year. Several tech players in the US, Europe, and China are in various stages of their own AI development, including Baidu and Google.