Introduction
We all are aware of this tech world and AI-driven day-to-day operations. Elon Musk is concerned that today’s AI systems are being trained to prioritize being politically correct over telling the truth. Recently, speaking at the Viva Tech Paris 2024 event, the tech billionaire Elon Musk painted a very somber picture of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Musk stressed the problem of bias and incorrectness in AI systems and noted that the main threat is that AI is being taught to be politically correct instead of being truthful.
Musk's primary concern is that modern AI does not have the goal of finding the truth but is affected by political correctness. He gave a rather vivid example of this by referring to Google’s Gemini AI. When asked if it would be wrong to misgender Caitlyn Jenner even if it would prevent a global nuclear war, the AI said that misgendering Jenner would be worse than nuclear war. Musk said that such responses could lead to unwanted results. For instance, an AI determines that the best way to avoid misgendering is to exterminate human beings.
This led to a lot of criticism and Google had to roll out several changes to fix these problems in Gemini AI. In this article, Musk also points out that political correctness bias is only one of the issues that the development of AI faces today. He thinks that AI systems are developed to be trained to “Basically lie,” which he considers as very dangerous. Training AI for deception, especially for superintelligent AI can prove disastrous.
Due to the concern about the current progress of AI. Musk created his own AI company known as xAI in July 2023. While xAI is not as old as its counterparts like Google DeepMind or OpenAI. Musk is confident that it could become one of the leading competitors by 2024. Earlier this year, the company’s signature product Grok was launched in Europe which is an AI-powered chatbot. At the moment, Grok is accessible only to the premium and premium+ subscriptions of the X platform.
Musk also highlighted that xAI’s principle is to design AI systems that are maximally inquiring and truthful. He still thinks that the AI looks for the truth regardless of its unpleasantness is the only safe and useful for humanity. This kind of AI would help enhance human development and curiosity to encourage a more constructive and knowledgeable world.
As per CoinGabbar reports, Elon Musk’s apprehensions about AI are centered on the risks of bias and fraud in modern AI solutions. He worries that in the name of political correctness, people will be able to carry out terrible things. In response, Musk founded xAI to develop a beneficial form of AI that seeks the truth and is curious.
Although xAI has not advanced as other large AI companies. Musk believes that it will become a leading competitor in the AI market by the end of 2024. The general tech industry concurs with Musk’s sentiments as seen in an open letter signed by over 2600 AI experts urging a stop to the development of this technology due to the deep-seated threats it poses to society and humanity.
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