Elon Musk aims to turn Twitter into an 'everything app.' An expert explains what that is and why it's not so easy to do
TechxploreAug 12, 2023
Elon Musk's AI Startup to Launch First Product
The Facts
Elon Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) company, known as xAI, will release its first AI model to a "select group" of people on Saturday, according to a post by the billionaire on X, formerly known as Twitter. Musk argued that in "some important respects," xAI's model is "the best that currently exists."
This comes as Musk, who recently participated in an AI-related discussion with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, said xAI is a "separate company from X Corp, but will work closely with X (Twitter), Tesla, and other companies to make progress towards our mission."
The Spin
Narrative A
While Musk touts his AI endeavors as a pursuit of good, the reality is that creating a universal app for everything will inevitably bring about security and privacy concerns. Just ask the people in China, whose most important daily functions, from social media and phone calls to mobile payments and investing, are under the watchful eye of the government. Musk is likely going to struggle in his attempt to garner a user base willing to put their entire lives in his hands and AI-powered applications.
Narrative B
Elon Musk speaks about AI in both a thoughtful and benevolent manner. Through his immense understanding of technology, he wants "robots" to help give humanity a "universal high income" rather than everyone living together at the bottom. Furthermore, he has and continues to openly call for strict safety measures to ensure AI can be turned off if it goes awry. If the AI-powered "everything app" is going to be invented, Musk will undoubtedly lead the way.
Nerd narrative
There's a 50% chance that AI systems will become sophisticated enough that they can build, to some specification, a system that can itself do sophisticated programming by June 2026, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
