Elon Musk Talks AI, Freedom of Speech & More at VivaTech
Elon Musk talks about AI and its threats, freedom of speech, and the evolution of Twitter, his childhood, the beginning of Tesla and SpaceX, Starlink, and much more during the VivaTech conference. The charismatic engineer and entrepreneur was the guest star of the conference.
VivaTech welcomes Elon Musk
Viva Technology is an annual conference dedicated to innovation and startups. With the participation of famous people, it takes place annually in Paris. VivaTech is supported by the President of the country, Emmanuel Macron, who also spoke today. Previously, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Alibaba’s Jack Ma, and even Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky have performed there. CEO of SpaceX, Tesla, and Twitter, Elon Musk is the guest star of 2023.
Elon Musk on AI
For about an hour, Musk answered questions from Maurice Levy, chairman of the supervisory board of the French advertising agency Publicis Groupe, and Christel Heidemann, CEO of Orange UK. Their conversation touched on artificial intelligence. Musk believes that AI is the most disruptive technology of all time. For example, Tesla is using AI to achieve autonomous driving.
However, Musk also does not forget about the potential threats posed by AI. He predicts that in the future, AI will be much smarter than the smartest person. That is why Musk advocates pausing the development of AI until a better assessment of their development is made and the field is not regulated.
“I asked to pause AI development just to say it on the record. I think there is a real danger with superintelligence. We need to minimize the probability that something will go wrong. We need some regulation for AI,” Musk said.
Although Musk is wary of AI, he would like to witness its development, even if it ends in disaster. Even if the AI apocalypse comes, he would like to be alive at this moment to witness it.
Elon Musk on free speech
In addition to developing two of the most disruptive companies in the world, Musk also bought Twitter almost eight months ago. Now he is actively engaged in transforming it. Musk’s goal is to create a digital city square where different points of view can be expressed.
“We should be able to express things, otherwise it is censorship and at some point, censorship goes against you,” Musk said. He added that he is in favor of having as much freedom of speech on Twitter as possible, as far as the laws of each country allow. The platform owner also said that offensive tweets are restricted and will not be promoted by the algorithm. Therefore, they will be less noticeable.
Elon Musk on the evolution of Twitter
Musk said that even before buying the platform, he realized that Twitter was having a devastating effect on civil society. Therefore, by buying it, he hoped and sought to change it. As one of the most active users on Twitter, Musk stressed that those who regularly use the platform will say that their user experience has improved recently. In almost eight months, Twitter eliminated 90 percent of bots and scammers, according to Musk. In addition, measures have finally been taken against accounts that distribute child sexual exploitation content.
The appeal of Twitter continues to grow. The platform has taken decisive steps towards transparency. Recently, its source code was opened, which shows the algorithm for recommending tweets. In addition, accounts now know when they have received limited visibility. Previously, the platform activated shadowbans for some accounts, although it denied doing so.
“Twitter is the only social media company where you can see the code of the algorithm. The way to build trust is to show how it works, with full transparency. We will also show clearly if your account is affected by the Twitter system. I think in general the users of Twitter find it is good. The public is using the system more, we see a growth in usage. The public is expressing its satisfaction with their time,” Musk said.