Elon Musk To Launch TruthGPT, To Take On Microsoft And Google

Elon Musk has announced his plans of launching a truth-seeking artificial intelligence (AI) platform, 'TruthGPT,' to take on Google, Microsoft and OpenAI. "I'm going to start something which I call 'TruthGPT', or a maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe," Musk announced in an interview with Fox News Channel on Monday.

Elon went on to criticise the Microsoft-backed OpenAI for "training the AI to lie." He accused the firm of becoming a "closed source" and "for-profit"." He also took a jab at Google's co-founder, Larry Page, accusing him of not taking AI safety seriously.

Elon further revealed that his TruthGPT would try to understand the nature of the universe, becoming the "best path to safety" that is "unlikely to annihilate humans." According to him, the launch was an effort to create a third option, in addition to the existing offerings from Google and Microsoft.

Interestingly, Musk's announcement comes after a group of AI experts called for a six-month pause in developing systems more powerful than OpenAI's newly launched GPT-4, over concerns about potential risks to society.

Musk also reiterated his warning about the dangers of AI, saying that "AI is more dangerous than, say, mismanaged aircraft design or production maintenance or bad car production." He warned that AI has the potential to cause "civilizational destruction."

Elon co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but stepped down from the company's board in 2018. He revealed that he left OpenAI because he had to focus on Tesla and SpaceX, and other reasons for his departure from OpenAI were that "Tesla was competing for some of the same people as OpenAI & I didn't agree with some of what OpenAI team wanted to do."

Reportedly, he has been poaching AI researchers from Google to launch a start-up to rival OpenAI. Last month, he registered a firm named X.AI Corp, incorporated in Nevada, according to a state filing, listing him as the sole director.