VOA Special English
Musk Tells of Plans to Create an Alternative to ChatGPT

    2023-4-18

    Businessman Elon Musk says ChatGPT and other artificial intelligence "bots" are too liberal and that he plans to create his own.

    Musk, the owner of Twitter and the Tesla electric vehicle company, spoke with Tucker Carlson on the American television channel Fox News on Monday night.

    He said his new AI "bot" will be called TruthGPT. He said it will be a "maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe."

    In this image released by FOX News, Elon Musk gestures as he is interviewed by FOX News host Tucker Carlson on Thursday, April 13, 2023. (FOX News via AP)
    In this image released by FOX News, Elon Musk gestures as he is interviewed by FOX News host Tucker Carlson on Thursday, April 13, 2023. (FOX News via AP)

    He said his creation will try to understand humanity so it is less likely to destroy it.

    Musk told Carlson that he is concerned the current AI creations are "being trained to be politically correct."

    He went on to say he wants to regulate, or set rules, for artificial intelligence. He said he sees the programs as being "more dangerous" than cars or rockets. He said the computer systems, which can have human-like discussions with users, have the ability to harm humans.

    The discussion shown Monday on Fox News was the first of two parts.

    Musk has some experience investing in artificial intelligence. He put money into Open AI, the company that created ChatGPT in 2015. But his involvement with the company ended in 2018. OpenAI said at the time that Musk left to end a conflict of interest as Tesla worked on automated driving systems.

    In his conversation on Monday, Musk said he came up with the name OpenAI. At the time, Musk said, OpenAI was not-for-profit but it is now for profit. He also complained about the company's close ties with Bill Gates' Microsoft.

    In the past, Musk has said that Gates and Meta leader Mark Zuckerberg do not have a good understanding of artificial intelligence.

    Musk used Twitter in 2019 to explain why he left OpenAI. In his posts, he said it was because Tesla wanted to hire some of the same people for its work on automated driving. He said it was better to leave OpenAI "on good terms."

    Since then, however, Musk has both praised and criticized artificial intelligence. Most recently, Musk has noted what he calls left-wing bias.

    ChatGPT and other bots take information from around the internet and use it to answer questions. The companies that create these programs say they use filters to prevent the bots from giving out offensive answers.

    A report from the Associated Press said Musk and a business partner turned in papers in March to create a company called X.AI Corp in the western state of Nevada.

    I'm Caty Weaver.

    Dan Friedell adapted this story for Learning English based on a report by the Associated Press.

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    Words in This Story

    artificial intelligence–n. an area of computer science that deals with giving machines the ability to seem like they have human intelligence

    bot –n. a computer program trained to do something such as have a conversation with a human

    liberal –adj. believing that government should be active in supporting social and political change

    maximum –adj. the most or highest level

    nature –n. the core, or deep-down truth of something

    politically correct –adj. agreeing with the idea that people should be careful to not use language or behave in a way that could offend a particular group of people

    conversation –n. the act of speaking to another person

    hire –v. to offer a person work

    left-wing –adj. having a liberal political point of view

    bias –n. favoring a point of view