Did Elon Musk forget about OpenAI or is he just trolling his dumbest fans?
Just breathe. It’s okay. He can take the criticism
AI doesn’t happen on accident
When we think about OpenAI’s GPT-3’s ability towrite original codeor create cogent text articles, for example, it starts to feel like AI is becoming incredibly human-like.
But the ability to generate text or auto-generate computer code is only impressive at scale, and even then it’s notthatcool.
GPT-3 is imitating human-like behavior, but it’s not acting like a human. In essence, GPT-3 is no different than a parrot.
If you want a parrot to say “Polly wants a cracker” you have to repeat that phrase over and over and reward it with a cracker. If you want it to say “Polly wants a hand grenade” you’ll still have to give it a cracker. That’s because Polly doesn’t know what the words mean, it just wants a cracker and is really good at imitating noises.
GPT-3 is like a trillion parrots, all trained to say a unique phrase, waiting for their trigger word all at once. Except parrots are individually smarter than GPT3, which is in turn much faster.
To put this into perspective, let’s talk about Tesla’s current AI capabilities and what it would actually mean for it or any other company to successfully solve and build an AGI.
Musk claims that Tesla’s “Dojo”couldbethe world’s most powerful supercomputer. It’s a bespoke system dedicated solely to training Tesla’s AI systems.
That probably sounds pretty amazing to Tesla fans.The world’s most powerful supercomputer was built just to train the world’s most advanced cars to drive themselves!
AI isn’t alchemy
But no amount of computer power can force a narrow AI to become a general one. Just like there’s no combination of math and wizardry that can legitimately turn lead into gold (sansa particle accelerator), there’s no combination of deep learning algorithms at scale that can suddenly brute-force an AI capable of human-level intelligence.
When you put the media hyperbole surrounding Dojo and Elon’s hype together, you get a bunch of people who are convinced that Tesla’s AI system are becoming more intelligent at an exponential rate. They believe their cars work just like RPG characters.If Dojo gets enough experience it will level up and become even more powerful!
If this were true, then it’s only a matter of time before Tesla’s AI becomes the most powerful entity on the planet.
And if you believe that’s what’s happening at Tesla, you’re out of touch with reality. That’s not how machine learning works.
The only people who truly believe that Tesla is legitimately going to surpass Google, Apple, MIT, Meta, Nvidia, IBM, and Microsoft when it comes to AI are people who’re either financially invested in the company or emotionally invested in Musk.
Tesla is late to the party
Think about it: Boston Dynamics has been working on making useful robots for decades. Many of the people responsible for creating the foundational algorithms and neural networks that Tesla is using are currently working for Facebook, IBM, Google, Nvidia, and Apple.
The sheer number of companies working in the robotics, autonomy, and machine learning space is staggering. And Tesla is far from being a leader in the AI space. Where IBM and Google have thousands of AI products on the market that help businesses and governments do everything from automating transportation and shipping logistics to providing real-time battlefield analysis and command and control capabilities, Tesla and SpaceX have a handful of narrow systems.
And that’s what makes Musk’s claims that Tesla “could” contribute to AGI all the more ludicrous. He may as well be saying that a power surge during a thunderstorm could contribute toa military robot becoming sentient.
AGI literally stands for “artificial general intelligence.” In the computer science world “general” means the opposite of “narrow.”
A “narrow” intelligence, such as Tesla’s Full Self Driving, is only capable of performing a specific set of functions. A general intelligence would be capable of performing any feat a human can, given the same access.
We’re essentially talking about the difference between a robotic arm that tightens screws and C3PO from Star Wars.
Credit where it’s due
That’s not to say what Musk’s companies do with AI isn’t incredible. How can you not be stunned by Tesla’s ability to brute force level 2 autonomy using a vision-only approach?
And seriously, anyone who doesn’t get chills when they seea SpaceX rocket land itselfprobably doesn’t understand how hard it is to pull off such a complex feat.
But it’s ridiculous to claim that Tesla might accidentally back into AGI because it’s systems “train against the outside world.” Alexa trains against the outside world as well. Does Musk think it’s going to magically morph into an AGI on accident too?
And, laugh-out-loud, Elon Musk has already built an AI company solely dedicated to AGI. It’s OpenAI, the one that makes GPT-3! He co-founded it for crying out loud.
Did he forget about that?
Musk’s almost certainly trolling his fans. Especially the ones who appear to actually believe that Tesla is somehowthe only companyto ever come up with the idea of creating a domestic robot.
A tale of two Elons
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe Elon’s genius will strike again and he’ll shock us all. But it’s more likely his grifter side is drumming up “ooohs” and “ahhs” to help make it look like therecent price hike to Full Self Drivingis an investment in something bigger than it really is.
Unfortunately, if you want the Elon Musk who made PayPal a success, pushed Tesla to become the greatest car manufacturer in the world, and revolutionized space flight, you also have to take the one who’s his own shill too.
Just remember, his predictions are traditionally more outlandish than Ray Kurzweil’s andMiss Cleo’scombined.
Here’s one from 2017:
Here’s one from 2020:
At the end of the day, you don’t have to take my word for it. If you think Musk’s right, feel free to order yourself aTesla robotaxi, hop on your localhigh-speed autonomous hyperloop, and go buy aTesla Optimus bot.
Story byTristan Greene
Tristan is a futurist covering human-centric artificial intelligence advances, quantum computing, STEM, physics, and space stuff. Pronouns:(show all)Tristan is a futurist covering human-centric artificial intelligence advances, quantum computing, STEM, physics, and space stuff. Pronouns: He/him
Get the TNW newsletter
Get the most important tech news in your inbox each week.
