Elon Musk’s AI Warnings May Be His Strategy To Catch Up, Says Venture Capitalist

Tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist Vinod Khosla has suggested that Elon Musk's warnings about the dangers of artificial intelligence (AI) may be a strategy to catch up with rival companies in the AI race.

Khosla shared his thoughts with Bloomberg, stating that Musk's calls to slow down AI development could be a ploy to give himself an edge in the field.

Musk Joins Call to Halt AI Development

In March of this year, Musk joined over 1,000 individuals who signed an open letter that cautioned about the uncontrollable competition between AI companies, calling for a six-month hiatus on further advancements.

Recently, Musk backed up Geoffrey Hinton, popularly referred to as the "Godfather of AI," when he expressed remorse about the creation of AI that might endanger humanity.

However, Khosla believes that Musk's warnings about AI may be a strategic move to keep up with other AI firms. "Elon is behind," he said. "I 80% suspect his call to slow down AI development was so he could catch up."

It must be noted that in 2015, Musk co-founded OpenAI with a group of investors and researchers, including Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. The organization aimed to develop safe AI and ensure its benefits were shared among everyone.

However, in 2018, Musk resigned from OpenAI's board due to conflicts with the team. He expressed concerns that the company's research could be monopolized by powerful companies, including Google, and that it could contribute to the development of dangerous AI.

Since then, Musk has been focused on developing AI at his other companies, including Tesla and Neuralink. According to reports, Musk was concerned that OpenAI was lagging behind Google in the race for new AI advancements. He believed that his chance of achieving artificial general intelligence (AGI) would be greater at Tesla.

But now, Musk is focused on growing his AI businesses and developing a ChatGPT alternative. His prospective competitor to ChatGPT would be named "TruthGPT."

All About TruthGPT

In an interview with Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Musk claimed that ChatGPT exhibits a liberal bias and that his alternative would be a "maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe."

Musk has recently introduced a new venture called X.AI Corp and lists himself as its director, with his longtime adviser Jared Birchall as the secretary.

TruthGPT was announced when concerns were growing about the rise of AI tools. Musk was among the tech leaders who supported an open letter urging AI companies to halt development, and TruthGPT aims to address concerns about alleged liberal bias in AI tools.

Musk has expressed concerns about the potential threats of AI to humanity and has even stated that AI may be more dangerous than cars or rockets.

However, Khosla believes that these warnings are merely Musk's strategy to keep up with the ongoing AI race.