If Donald Trump gives Elon Musk a cabinet or advisory role, should he do it? @elonmusk
— Teslaconomics (@Teslaconomics) August 19, 2024
Elon Musk’s online presence has evolved, with his promotion of Tesla now intertwined with culture war rhetoric and his political agitation becoming increasingly extreme. Musk recently interacted with far-right Canadian internet personality Lauren Southern, even financially supporting her through Twitter’s subscription feature. A new study claims that AI poses no existential threat to humanity.
Interesting question, right? What could we potentially learn from Musk in such a presidential assigned post?
I'm quoted in this @FT (Financial Times) story about Elon's right wing turn of Twitter/X. https://t.co/Axo878ksO1 pic.twitter.com/SmUkiKzIvv
— Anupam Chander (@AnupamChander) August 19, 2024
While large language models show proficiency in language and appear to follow instructions, they cannot master new skills without explicit instruction, making them controllable and predictable. The study explains that purported emergent abilities in AI are not genuinely emergent but result from a combination of in-context learning, model memory, and linguistic knowledge. Nvidia has been accused of ‘unjust enrichment’ in a federal lawsuit alleging that it scraped YouTube to train its AI systems.
"Freedom and merit is what America should be about."
Elon Musk pic.twitter.com/NDpxduPatu
— Tesla Owners Silicon Valley (@teslaownersSV) August 20, 2024
The suit claims Nvidia used software on commercial servers to evade YouTube’s detection and downloaded ‘approximately 80 years’ worth of video content per day’ to train its Cosmos AI software. This lawsuit highlights the tension between technological advancement and intellectual property rights in the AI industry. Elon Musk showed himself unbothered by facts during his appearance at the Atreju festival in Rome. But have you noticed the interesting lack of fact-checking on Kamala and Biden?
Musk’s influence on global discourse
Musk made several inaccurate statements, including claiming the world’s population will shrink to “one-10th of its current size” within three generations and that farming and cows do no significant harm to the environment.
An interesting insight is that — was the world population statement actually inaccurate? “Will Shrink” and “Shrunk” are two different things. Musk was possibly telling the future, but he may be spot on. Getting to the future is the only way to finally know if Musk was inaccurate but we don’t know that now. With more than 190 million followers on X, Musk has a vast influence, raising concerns about the safety of truth in his hands.
Media ownership matters significantly, as Westminster’s communications committee pointed out in its report on the future of investigative journalism. The committee noted that an owner “can significantly impact the journalistic culture of a news organization.” Ireland’s financial regulatory regime requires owners and managers of charitable trusts and financial services companies to satisfy a fit-and-proper-person test. Still, no equivalent standard exists for news media ownership. Elon Musk’s version of free speech has positioned him and his X social-media platform into the spotlight of global governments.
In the United Kingdom, officials are considering stricter regulations for sites like X following a surge of online disinformation that some claim prompted riots. Similarly, in India and Brazil, X has faced conflicts with the government over the spread of fake news and hate speech. Musk’s commitment to “free speech” has cost X advertising revenue and thrust him into political skirmishes globally.
Critics argue that Musk’s defense facilitates the spread of hate speech and falsehoods. The balance between maintaining free speech and preventing harmful content remains a contentious and evolving issue as global scrutiny on X intensifies.
