Elon Musk will launch TruthGPT to fight Open AI, even as he battles Twitter and Starship woes

After urging for an AI pause over security concerns, billionaire businessman Elon Musk has announced he will be launching his own artificial intelligence platform called 'TruthGPT'.

The Twitter and Tesla owner told Fox News host Tucker Carlson on Monday night that he plans to create an alternative to the ChatGPT that will be a "maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe."

Musk, who has been very vocal about the rise of AI, accused OpenAI of "training the AI to lie" and becoming a "closed source" allied with Microsoft. He accused Larry Page, co-founder of Google, of not taking AI safety seriously.

SpaceX Starship test launch postponed at the last minute

What will TruthGPT be like?

Musk said TruthGPT will be the maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe. "This might be the best path to safety, in the sense that an AI that cares about understanding the universe, is unlikely to annihilate humans because we are an interesting part of the universe," he said.

Musk said he wants an AI that wants to understand humanity and which is not trained to be politically correct. "An AI that cares about understanding the universe is unlikely to annihilate humans because we are an interesting part of the universe," Musk said.

Though exactly what the TruthGPT is going to look like is not clear yet, he is serious about the AI platform as last month Musk registered a firm named X.AI Corp. The firm listed Musk as the sole director. And in February he tweeted: "What we need is TruthGPT."

What we need is TruthGPT

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 17, 2023

AI regulation

During the interview, Musk also said he is a big fan of the regulation of artificial intelligence. He called AI "more dangerous" than cars or rockets and said it has the potential to destroy humanity.

After OpenAI launched the more-advanced GPT-4 last month, Musk and a group of artificial intelligence experts and industry executives called for a six-month pause in developing AI systems, citing potential risks to society.

Musk said that a super-intelligent AI can potentially manipulate public opinion. A few days back he tweeted that when Barack Obama was the US President, he had told him that Washington needed to "encourage AI regulation".

I saw it happening from well before GPT-1, which is why I tried to warn the public for years.

The only one on one meeting I ever had with Obama as President I used not to promote Tesla or SpaceX, but to encourage AI regulation.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 16, 2023

Musk poaching AI researchers?

Musk has been poaching AI researchers from Alphabet Inc's Google to launch a startup to rival OpenAI, people familiar with the matter told Reuters.

Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015, but he stepped down from the company's board in 2018. In 2019, he tweeted that he left OpenAI because he had to focus on Tesla and SpaceX.

AI revolution

The launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT last year created a storm in the technology world, and it got a million users on their platform within a month. To compete with them, Google had announced its own generative AI, Bard. And after OpenAI announced a much better and more accurate version of ChatGPT, GPT4, Google on March 21 began the public release of its chatbot Bard.

And now with Musk, who already has some experience working with AI, also joining the AI race, the market of artificial intelligence is going to get more competitive. Though there are many AI platforms now, the Microsoft-backed ChatGPT still holds the majority share in the chatbot market, followed by Google's Bard.

Problems at Twitter and Starship

Musk's SpaceX could have made history on Monday, April 17, with the first scheduled test flight of Starship, the largest rocket ever made. It is also expected to one day carry humans to the space. However, the test launch got postponed at the last minute due to a technical glitch. SpaceX will try to launch Starship again on April 20.

His biggest worry, however, has been Twitter. Since the day he decided to take over the social media platform, he has been involved in controversies. From legal troubles over the acquisition, the bot issue, the removing of legacy blue ticks, and the firing of a large number of employees, his journey so far at Twitter has been full of obstacles.