Elon Musk

Stuff on the Elon vs Open AI thing I posted about yesterday.

This is the historically correct version;

www.semafor.com

The secret history of Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and OpenAI

In 2018, Musk wanted to take charge of OpenAI to beat Google but others opposed the move, putting Altman at the helm.
www.semafor.com www.semafor.com

Here's Sam Altman on Lex Friedman's podcast today, calling Elon 'A Jerk'.



The fuller version looks even worse for Elon. Like he truly stiffed himself and thought he'd let OpenAI go to the wall. But to me, OpenAI + Twitter would have had massive potential. Maybe he stopped any link up there. But at the same time, I've a vague suspicion buying Twitter sorta looks like compensation for his ego. Clearly it happened just as GPT3.5 started to make waves.

Still. Twitter wasn't a disaster some predicted. It's been uneven, but it's run easily enough, and remains a massive draw for people. It's worth having. The inevitability is that he, like all these guys, will end up letting go of control. But he'll remain 'in charge' of a thing of value far beyond than his short term political messaging and ego-wankery.

They can run it. People want to use it. It has revenue, and he's slashed costs. Was always going to be hard to truly destroy a thing that's actually not that complicated, when you have people who easily know enough to repair it, when the dropouts in the service only increase awareness and therefore demand.

A jerk is a jerk. Elon's a jerk. He makes life difficult for himself. But he's a jerk with three future oriented class leading companies like Tesla, Space X, and Twitter, needs to be respected for their ability and standing in the game. He is going nowhere. And I hate to tell people like this, but people are jerks. Big time. Elon is in touch with that, in touch with the reality of people, at moments you and I are not. And being a jerk is not even the worst thing you can be. Sometimes not being a jerk is a misguided niceity. And all the song and dance we make about that is just waffle. He's not affected by that. On either score. That is partly why he is where he is. People should get real. Otherwise the jerks will run away with it.
 
Summerbuzz said:
Stuff on the Elon vs Open AI thing I posted about yesterday.

This is the historically correct version;

www.semafor.com

The secret history of Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and OpenAI

In 2018, Musk wanted to take charge of OpenAI to beat Google but others opposed the move, putting Altman at the helm.
www.semafor.com www.semafor.com

Here's Sam Altman on Lex Friedman's podcast today, calling Elon 'A Jerk'.



The fuller version looks even worse for Elon. Like he truly stiffed himself and thought he'd let OpenAI go to the wall. But to me, OpenAI + Twitter would have had massive potential. Maybe he stopped any link up there. But at the same time, I've a vague suspicion buying Twitter sorta looks like compensation for his ego. Clearly it happened just as GPT3.5 started to make waves.

Still. Twitter wasn't a disaster some predicted. It's been uneven, but it's run easily enough, and remains a massive draw for people. It's worth having. The inevitability is that he, like all these guys, will end up letting go of control. But he'll remain 'in charge' of a thing of value far beyond than his short term political messaging and ego-wankery.

They can run it. People want to use it. It has revenue, and he's slashed costs. Was always going to be hard to truly destroy a thing that's actually not that complicated, when you have people who easily know enough to repair it, when the dropouts in the service only increase awareness and therefore demand.

A jerk is a jerk. Elon's a jerk. He makes life difficult for himself. But he's a jerk with three future oriented class leading companies like Tesla, Space X, and Twitter, needs to be respected for their ability and standing in the game. He is going nowhere. And I hate to tell people like this, but people are jerks. Big time. Elon is in touch with that, in touch with the reality of people, at moments you and I are not. And being a jerk is not even the worst thing you can be. Sometimes not being a jerk is a misguided niceity. And all the song and dance we make about that is just waffle. He's not affected by that. On either score. That is partly why he is where he is. People should get real. Otherwise the jerks will run away with it.
Click to expand...

Elon bought Twitter in part because he thought it was a woke liberal echo chamber and it needed 'fixing'. He honestly thought that he could neutralise the bias in the coding and it would be full of intelligent and articulate right wing centred debate. He also thought that it would be easy to ramp up the income streams.

So far his dabbling with the code and his polictical interventions have been a disaster. And the finances we cant say for sure but anecdotally - he's absolutely ruined it.
 
It was never user friendly however it has really gone to shit.

Constantly bombarded by 'culture war' stuff that I don't give a crap about.

They really want/need engagement numbers to rise so are trying to get people retweeting and posting more by getting them involved in all the shouting matches.

I like science, nature and astronomy but I have to go to individual persons/organisations pages to now see their tweets.
 
Summerbuzz said:
I see we got bored of this.

Just a little tidbit I heard, well enough sourced, thought some of you might enjoy it.

Remember the big story about Microsoft buying Open AI, who are responsible for Chat GPT? Well, it sounded like a good move to me, although, whilst they are currently gaining users quite strongly, and Google are suffering, I think they should be aiming a lot higher than 15% growth in users for Bing.

But the goss is this. The move was quite controversial, as Open AI had, as their name may suggests, been a non-profit organisation. Even if they aren't "open" to any useful extent (they don't release the vital components of the software at all).

Being non-profit, they were relying nearly entirely on donations.

Elon gave them $100m. When they released Chat GPT 3.5 a few months ago, it caused a huge fuss, and users flocked to the service. Elon must have thought his ship had come in. The money was running out really quickly, as they had to hire buildings full of servers so people like me could try out their product. Elon had predicted this, and said they could come back for another BILLION.

Now, Elon is not giving away a billion dollars to anyone. There's little doubt, he was looking to leverage their need for cash, and turn it into control and equity.

But then MS swooped in and trumped him. They could immediately provide the servers to Open AI, so cash was not an issue. Further, they agreed to pay a big old price to purchase the organisation, and get the chance to revamp their entire software lineup with the first generation of user friendly AI tools. They also have loads of experience in tailoring solutions for outside companies, and today we've seen the first batch of web commerce sites annoucing GPT powered functions on their sites.

It's classic Microsoft, the big swoop, timed to perfection. Elon cannot be sicker. He has absolutely no chance of getting his hands on the big prize, the mass market AI search / browser. He can hope Microsoft will sell it to him for use in Tesla's but that is not what he wanted, for sure.

Now it looks like Elon wants that 100m back. And today, Sam Altman (Open AI's key figure) is in the press saying he never took equity in the organisation, which - if true, and true of the rest of the board - means Elon is facing an uphill struggle to get a cent back. He faces a fairly strong possibility of ending up having shelled out $100m to develop Microsoft's killer app for them, getting no return whatsoever.
Click to expand...
This is BS..He invested in Open Ai as he see's the danger that AI can pose to the world if unshackled. Being a big investor would give him a voice..the money is irrelevant to him...Microsoft otherwise known as his arch nemesis Bill Gates, have no such foresight in the dangers AI could pose and probably don't give a F*ck.
 
Gaz in Zurich said:
This is BS..He invested in Open Ai as he see's the danger that AI can pose to the world if unshackled. Being a big investor would give him a voice..the money is irrelevant to him...Microsoft otherwise known as his arch nemesis Bill Gates, have no such foresight in the dangers AI could pose and probably don't give a F*ck.
Click to expand...
fucking hell that's just got me laughing mate, no offence but that's a right old mess of unlikely viewpoints and backpropogation/retcon. not what I expected from your quarter, although maybe I've got you mixed up with someone else.

he invested donkeys years ago. to stop AI? yeah... okay! he was majorly hyping AI's potential until just before MS bought Open AI. check his tweet history on the subject. Now it's evil and he's the responsible one? I mean... don't make me laugh. he's jealous, it took headlines off him, it's the big thing and he's not involved. as soon as he gets any AI product he'll be pushing it like crazy. Still, I could kinda accept it as a plausible viewpoint. But not that he was always only ever investing because he was worried about it. Jesus wept. That's some seriously contorted projectioneering. I hope you have a nice weekend, because it sounds like you might actually need it!
 
Gaz in Zurich said:
This is BS..He invested in Open Ai as he see's the danger that AI can pose to the world if unshackled. Being a big investor would give him a voice..the money is irrelevant to him...Microsoft otherwise known as his arch nemesis Bill Gates, have no such foresight in the dangers AI could pose and probably don't give a F*ck.
Click to expand...
You do realise that Bill Gates has been talking about the dangers of AI for years, right?

www.forbes.com

Bill Gates Says You Should Worry About Artificial Intelligence

Bill Gates, like fellow brainiac Stephen Hawking and Tesla Motors founder / Iron Man inspiration Elon Musk, fears that artificial intelligence could pose a threat to humanity.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
 
Irwell said:
You do realise that Bill Gates has been talking about the dangers of AI for years, right?

www.forbes.com

Bill Gates Says You Should Worry About Artificial Intelligence

Bill Gates, like fellow brainiac Stephen Hawking and Tesla Motors founder / Iron Man inspiration Elon Musk, fears that artificial intelligence could pose a threat to humanity.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
Click to expand...
He's also been spouting the dangers of virus's for years and what do we get years later, after he's balls deep in the Pharma companies.
 
BlueMoonAcrossThePond said:
Elon seems hell-bent on driving Twitter into bankruptcy for sake of notoriety and revenge on Democrats.
www.yahoo.com

Elon Musk painted over the W on Twitter's sign at its San Francisco headquarters, changing it to 'Titter'

Musk posted a photo of the Twitter sign outside the company's San Francisco headquarters that showed the W painted white to match the background.
www.yahoo.com www.yahoo.com
Click to expand...
I don't so much defend Elon as try to prevent people becoming complacent. Twitter is still the big draw in social media and is no closer to folding now than it was 6 months ago. Elon CAN carry on like this, as long as he is permitted. I hate seeing people sitting on their hands and cheering as if it's going to the rafters, when it plainly doesn't work like that. It really is going to get worse, and the effects will be greater. The market will not have the effect you imagine. Ever. Social media does not work like that. It works in exactly the opposite way. Elon knows that. People are in total denial about this stuff. If it upsets and offends you, you have to aim the matter back towards the people you vote for.

What we're seeing now is that now the storm has passed, Elon is getting bolder, and is moving towards using the site as a way of shaping what people see. He will be the new fucking Murdoch in about a decade. If he is allowed to. The complacent arrogance about his 'obvious' imminent failure will ensure it happens. People doing this are the gawping crowd that in fact ensures he doesn't fail, he just gets more users.

In the past two weeks, the situation with NPR and the BBC, insisting on labelling them as "State Affiliated Media", implying they are nothing but government propoganda outfits, has led the former to quit.

Perhaps even more troubling is his anti-competitive, anti-freedom of information and speech actions towards the very decent social publishing site Substack.

Twitter removed all sorts of things in any post with links to Substack accounts - no replies, no retweets. They redirected all searches for the term back towards Twitter. The word cannot appear in your popular feed. I'd be horrified if the EU and UK governments didn't regard this worth investigating for abuse.

Substack sample accounts for anyone interested. You DONT have to subscribe. Just hit no. See what you think. Do it. Do something that Elon actually doesn't want.

3w3m.substack.com

3 Worlds / 3 Moons | Substack

THREE WORLDS / THREE MOONS : The Next Great Comics Universe Starts Here. From creators Mike del Mundo, Jonathan Hickman, Mike Huddleston and Nick Spencer. Click to read 3 Worlds / 3 Moons, a Substack publication with tens of thousands of subscribers.
3w3m.substack.com 3w3m.substack.com
Couple of city ones;
https://totallywired.substack.com/
https://9320.substack.com/
aisupremacy.substack.com

AI Supremacy | Michael Spencer | Substack

News at the intersection of Artificial Intelligence, technology and business including Op-Eds, research summaries, guest contributions and valuable info about A.I. startups. Click to read AI Supremacy, by Michael Spencer, a Substack publication with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
aisupremacy.substack.com aisupremacy.substack.com
jefftweedy.substack.com

Starship Casual | Jeff Tweedy | Starship Casual | Substack

Jeff Tweedy shares songs, advice, general musings, and whatnot... Click to read Starship Casual, by Jeff Tweedy | Starship Casual, a Substack publication with hundreds of thousands of subscribers.
jefftweedy.substack.com jefftweedy.substack.com

Finally, if anyone was in doubt about Elon's motivation in signing the 'AI Pause' letter, this ought to clear things up.

www.businessinsider.com

Elon Musk's AI ambitions for Twitter show that some of the people calling for the tech to 'pause' seem to be acting out of their own self-interest

Elon Musk was one of the most prominent backers of an AI 'pause.' Now, he's moving Twitter to the forefront of AI development.
www.businessinsider.com www.businessinsider.com

He's playing catch up, and would try anything to slow down his competitors.
 
Weird world we live in...the Dalai Lama sticking his tongue down a child's throat live on camera, the BBC interviewing Elon Musk as some sort of massive scoop (why is this of any importance ?), headlines as to whether Harry turns up for the King's Coronation while his family stays at home in America.
 
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