DETROIT, March 1 (Portal) – Elon Musk has often clashed with securities regulators and traffic safety agencies, but there’s one area the government should regulate now, according to Tesla and Twitter bosses: artificial intelligence.
“AI stresses me out,” Musk said toward the end of a more than three-hour presentation to Tesla investors about company plans.
Tesla’s own ambitious artificial intelligence efforts featured prominently in presenting Musk’s “Masterplan 3,” the third in a series of papers on how to scale Tesla and transition the world to clean energy.
There was video of a humanoid Optimus robot being developed by Tesla manipulating parts of other Optimus robots as if intending to assemble replicas of itself. Executives gave detailed presentations on how Tesla is using artificial intelligence technology to train vehicles to drive themselves — an effort under scrutiny by federal and state agencies.
But when asked by an analyst if AI could help Tesla build cars, Musk took a less optimistic line.
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“I don’t see AI helping us build cars any time soon,” he said. “At this point… there’s no point in either of us working.”
Earlier this week, Musk appeared to confirm via Twitter reports that he is recruiting a team of AI technologists to build a competitor for OpenAI’s text-based ChatGPT, backed by Microsoft Corp, (MSFT.O) and similar systems built at Alphabet Inc. (GOOGL.O) Google, Meta Platforms Inc (META.O) and other major technology platforms.
Musk tweeted last December that ChatGPT, a text-based chatbot developed by OpenAI that can draft prose, poetry, or even computer code on command, “is frighteningly good. We’re not far from dangerously powerful AI.” He reinforced those concerns for the Tesla analyst audience on Wednesday.
“I’m a little worried about the AI stuff,” Musk said from a stage flanked by 16 Tesla executives, including the head of Autopilot.
“We need something like a regulator or something to oversee AI development,” Musk said. “Make sure it’s operating in the public interest. It’s quite a dangerous technology. I’m afraid I did some things to speed it up.”
Tesla’s efforts to enable its cars to drive themselves safely are “obviously useful” AI, Musk said.
“I don’t know it. Tesla is doing good things in AI,” he said. Musk paused, then sighed. “It stresses me. I don’t know what to say about that.”
Reporting by Joe White; Adaptation by Stephen Coates
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