Tried to warn public for years: Musk cites meeting with President Obama about AI concerns

Tech billionare Elon Musk once again echoed his concerns regarding regulation around Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its progress in the industry. Replying to a tweet by an AI developer named Mckay Wrigley, Musk went on to recall a one-on-one meeting he had with then-United States President Barack Obama where the Twitter CEO did not promote his companies Tesla or SpaceX, but instead he used the time to "encourage AI regulation".

Wrigley had tweeted, "It blows my mind that people can’t apply exponential growth to the capabilities of AI. You would’ve been called a *lunatic* a year ago if you said we’d have GPT-4 level AI right now. Now think another year. 5yrs? 10yrs? It’s going to hit them like an asteroid." Musk replied, "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."

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)

A few weeks ago, Musk and more than a thousand other researchers and tech leaders signed an open letter warning that AI could offer "profound risks to society and humanity." The letter demanded a worldwide "pause" on AI research for "at least six months" to "give society a chance to adapt" to the quickly developing technological advances. It later turned out that some of the signatories were fake.

Last month, at a Tesla event, Musk remarked, "AI stresses me out," calling it "quite dangerous technology" and acknowledging, "I may have done some things to accelerate it." Given these worries, it's unclear what he will aim to accomplish with X.AI Corp., the most recent in a long series of tech companies Musk has started or led, RT reported.

Elon Musk's AI Start-up: X.AI Corp

The tech mogul has founded a new artificial intelligence corporation called X.AI Corp. This comes against the backdrop of Musk changing Twitter's official name to X Corp. and suggesting directives over developing an "everything app" called "X".

The AI start-up was born in Nevada on March 9 with Elon's designation as a director. Jared Birchall, a former executive at Morgan Stanley who is currently the CEO of Musk's Neuralink company, has been appointed as secretary. 

Last week, it was reported that Twitter, as part of the project, which focuses on a large language model (LLM), has acquired roughly 10,000 GPUs (graphics processing unit) and enlisted AI experts from DeepMind.