Elon Musk believes OpenAI may have found ‘something dangerous’ which resulted in the recent turmoil at the company.
The world’s richest man, who co-founded OpenAI, was speaking at the New York Times’s Dealbook23 conference on Thursday Nov.30, in conversation with journalist Andrew Ross Sorkin when he suggested that something had been discovered that could pose a significant threat.
The comments landed after the recent furor in which ChatGPT creator OpenAI fired and then re-hired chief executive Sam Altman within a matter of days. A full picture has not yet emerged as to why the top-level discord surfaced and what it all means for the future of artificial intelligence.
With the temporary removal of Altman, Musk gave a typically robust opinion on the situation, as well as the role of OpenAI cofounder and chief scientist Ilya Sutskever.
“I have mixed feelings about Sam. The ring of power can corrupt,” stated the 52-year-old billionaire.
On Sutskever, he was curious as to why she “felt so strongly as to fight Sam. That sounds like a serious thing. I don’t think it was trivial. And I’m quite concerned that there’s some dangerous element of AI that they’ve discovered.”
The conversation was analyzed by Last Call on CNBC, including this segment posted to their X account.
"I thought @elonmusk pointed out a really important issue with OpenAI that's getting lost in all this drama over @sama," says Vanity Fair's @bethanymac12. "He also went on to say that he believes that AI is possibly the end of humanity. Elon Musk is very scared by this." pic.twitter.com/QGPUxhUwWR
— Last Call (@LastCallCNBC) November 30, 2023
Elon Musk responds to X advertiser backlash
These comments from Elon Musk were in addition to his profanity-filled statement to the advertisers leaving X because of the platform’s perceived antisemitism.
X, formerly known as Twitter, has seen the departures of blue-chip corporations such as Disney, Apple, IBM, and Coca-Cola, who have removed paid ads from the social media giant.
Musk didn’t hold back on the matter.
“If someone’s going to try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money, go f*** yourself,” he blasted.
He said “f*** you” numerous times, at one point adding the words “hey, Bob,” an assumed reference to Robert Iger, the chief executive of The Walt Disney Company.
Musk did concede that the offending X post was arguably the worst ever in his history on the site, but his response has been bullish and candid, as ever.
It’s been a busy week for the tech mogul. Also on Friday, he hosted the Tesla Cybertruck delivery event where he delivered the first models of the much-hyped EV pickup truck.
Featured image: brandywayart via Pixabay
