Musk's decision to make OpenAI open source was a deliberate move to rival Google's DeepMind AI initiative. He believes that Google's for-profit motivation can be potentially dangerous and that AI should not be used for profit. Musk has criticized Page for not taking AI safety seriously enough and for wanting "digital super-intelligence". Despite their falling out, Musk has expressed a desire to patch up his feuds with his other adversaries, including Mark Zuckerberg, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Jeff Bezos.
Key takeaways:
- Elon Musk and Larry Page, once close friends, had a falling out over disagreements on AI safety and direction, with the pivotal moment being when Musk recruited Google's top AI expert, Ilya Sutskever, to OpenAI.
- Musk co-founded OpenAI as a counterbalance to Google's DeepMind, aiming for it to be an open-source, non-profit organization in contrast to Google's for-profit, closed-source approach.
- Musk resigned from OpenAI in 2018, later admitting that he underestimated its potential profitability and disagreed with its transition from non-profit to for-profit.
- Musk has criticized Page for not taking AI safety seriously enough and aspiring to become a 'digital god' through the development of digital super-intelligence.