The tech billionaire now wants to get involved in the AI area.
(Photo: AP)
According to a newspaper, Tesla boss Elon Musk wants to found a new AI company to compete with the ChatGPT operator OpenAI. Musk has assembled a team of artificial intelligence (AI) researchers and engineers, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the plans.
The Twitter boss is also in talks with Tesla and SpaceX investors about getting involved in his new project. He has already secured thousands of Nvidia graphics processors for the project, it said. Such chips are also used in AI systems.
Musk initially did not comment. Nvidia stock turned positive after the report was released. Tesla stocks, on the other hand, were down 1.1 percent.
Musk founded OpenAI in 2015 together with Silicon Valley investor Sam Altman as a non-profit startup. He left the company’s board of directors in 2018. In February, technology news site The Information reported that Musk was planning to set up a new AI research lab. He recruited Igor Babushkin, a researcher who had left Alphabet’s AI division DeepMind. The two men talked about putting together a team to advance AI research. The project is still in the early stages and there is no concrete plan for the development of specific products.
>> Read also: “I know that the AI doesn’t know anything”: artificial intelligence should no longer tell nonsense
At the end of March, Musk, together with numerous experts from the industry, then called for a six-month break in AI development. “Powerful AI systems should only be developed when we are sure that their effects are positive and their risks are manageable,” it said in an open letter at the time. The authors warned of the dangers of generative AI, the technology behind ChatGPT.
Critics accused the authors of only fueling fears with the letter. Calls for regulation of AI grew louder on Thursday after China published planned guidelines for an ideological orientation of its AI systems.
More: OpenAI founder Sam Altman plans data comparison through eye scan