Musk says he'll launch AI platform to challenge Microsoft, Google

Billionaire Elon Musk says he will launch his own artificial intelligence (AI) platform as an alternative to those being built by Microsoft, Google and OpenAI.

Musk has warned of the existential dangers posed by AI to humanity, and told Fox News' Tucker Carlson in an interview aired Monday that his platform, dubbed TruthGPT, would be “maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe."

“And I think this might be the best path to safety in the sense that an AI that cares about understanding the universe is unlikely to annihilate humans because we are an interesting part of the universe,” Musk told Carlson.

Musk was a co-founder of OpenAI but left the company in 2018 after a reported power struggle. He told Carlson that he was concerned about the company's ChatGPT platform because it was being trained to be “politically correct."

“Like the intention with OpenAI was obviously to do good,” Musk told Carlson. “But it's not clear whether it's actually doing good or whether it's — I can't tell at this point except that I am worried about the fact that it's being trained to be politically correct, which is simply another way being untruthful — saying untruthful things.”

Musk, who is also the CEO of Twitter, founded a new artificial intelligence company named X.AI last month, following companies such as Microsoft and Google who in recent months have introduced their own AI platforms. 

The billionaire also co-signed a letter late last month calling for a six-month pause in the creation of “giant” AIs, so more research into its capabilities and dangers can be conducted, and mitigation strategies put in place.

Microsoft announced earlier in January that it will invest billions of dollars in OpenAI in part of a third phase of a partnership with the company. And Google will reportedly release its own powerful new AI tools next month.