Sam Altman and Elon Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015, but now the CEO of Twitter publicly calls for the development of artificial intelligence to stop, while Altman considers him “an idiot.”
Artificial intelligence is in one of its best moments. The development of this technology, however, is being criticized and put into debate by multiple figures in the industry, who are calling for regulation to find the safest way in which humanity can take advantage of it. Behind them, Sam Altman and Elon Musk are key figures.
The two founded OpenAI in 2015 , an open source company that was willing to do research on AI. Now, 8 years later, both are feuding and publicly throwing spikes at each other.
a damaged relationship
Certainly, the popularity of ChatGPT , a bot that uses artificial intelligence to create text and converse with humans, has made this separation of ideas more marked.
Musk, already away from the company since 2018, has pointed out that this technology “was the greatest existential threat” to humanity . His departure from the company, according to Altman, was because he wanted to run the company to beat Google, which was also driving its own AI division.
Currently, the CEO of Twitter requested through an open letter that all companies dedicated to the development of artificial intelligence and that are equal to or more powerful than GPT-4, stop their development for at least 6 months so that the corresponding entities can form regulatory and ethics commissions for this technology. The letter was also signed by other personalities such as the co-founder of Apple and the creator of Skype.
To this, Altman responded through his Twitter account: “Everything very calm in the eye of the hurricane.” He knows that, if fulfilled, the development of his main creation would be limited and that would have economic consequences: ChatGPT now maintains a premium subscription with which it tests new features for its users.
“To say something positive about Elon, I think he really cares about a future where artificial general intelligence [also called strong AI] exists. I mean, he’s a jerk, and whatever else you want to say about him, he’s got a style which is not the one I would want to have. But I think he really cares, and feels very stressed about what the future of humanity is going to be like,” Altman said, giving his ideas some credence.