Elon Musk Meets with Senate Leadership to Discuss AI Regulation

SpaceX, Tesla, and Twitter CEO Elon Musk met with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Wednesday to discuss AI regulation, a topic on which the billionaire has been vocal on.

Musk, an early investor in OpenAI who later distanced himself from the project, is a critic of mainstream AI and has frequently warned about the technology’s harmful potential.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., speaks during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, Feb. 2, 2023. Schumer says the United States believes the unidentified objects shot down by American fighter jets over Canada and Alaska were balloons, though smaller than the China balloon downed over the Atlantic Ocean last weekend. Schumer tells ABC’s “This Week” that he was briefed on Saturday night by President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, after the incident hours earlier over the Yukon. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

FILE – Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana, File)

After being spotted on Capitol Hill, the big tech CEO revealed that he had been discussing AI regulation with Sen. Schumer and various members of Congress.

“Met with @SenSchumer and many members of Congress about artificial intelligence regulation today,” said Musk on Twitter. “That which affects safety of the public has, over time, become regulated to ensure that companies do not cut corners. AI has great power to do good and evil. Better the former.”

Met with @SenSchumer and many members of Congress about artificial intelligence regulation today.

That which affects safety of the public has, over time, become regulated to ensure that companies do not cut corners.

AI has great power to do good and evil. Better the former.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 27, 2023

Despite being an early supporter of OpenAI, the organization that created ChatGPT, Musk has been increasingly critical of the project, targeting OpenAI for its closeness to Microsoft and ChatGPT for its political correctness.

Musk has promised to create an alternative AI chatbot called “TruthGPT,” arguing that an AI committed to the truth would be less likely to threaten humans.

“The intention with OpenAI was to do good, but it’s not clear if it’s doing good. It’s not clear at this point,” said Musk earlier this month.

“I am worried about the fact that it’s being trained to be politically correct, which is simply another way of saying untruthful things. That’s a bad sign. Certainly, a path to AI dystopia is to train an AI to be deceptive.”

“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.”

“This might be the best path to safety,” said Musk. “An AI that cares about understanding the universe is unlikely to annihilate humans, because we are an interesting part of the universe – hopefully.”

Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election.

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