Elon Musk, the CEO of X, xAI, SpaceX, Tesla, Neuralink, and The Boring Company, recently shared his thoughts on open sourcing AI models in a podcast with Lex Fridman. Musk expressed his overall support for open sourcing, with a preference for a slight time delay before doing so.
He talked about the origins of OpenAI, stating that he was a key figure in its creation due to discussions about AI safety with Larry Page. Musk expressed a concern that OpenAI, which was initially created as a nonprofit open source, has now become a closed source for maximum profit. However, he remains hopeful that friendships can be reinvigorated, expressing a desire to reconcile with Page.
Musk also highlighted the importance of individuals like Ilia Sutskever in the success of OpenAI, acknowledging the tough battle to recruit him. He emphasized the significance of proper data curation while open sourcing models, as the real challenge lies in separating good data from bad data.
The podcast episode provides insight into Musk’s views on the complexities of open sourcing AI models and the dynamics of the tech industry. It offers a fascinating glimpse into Musk’s thoughts on the industry and his interactions with key figures.
Watch the video by Lex Clips
Video Transcript
You know there’s a llama you you can open source once it’s trained you can open source a model yeah and for fine tuning and all that kind of stuff like what do you is the pros and cons of that of open sourcing based models um I think the cmer to open
Sourcing I think perhaps with a slight time delay you know I don’t know six six months even um I think I’m I’m generally in favor of open sourcing like bias towards open sourcing um I mean it it is a concern to me that you know open you know I was you know I
Think I guess arguably the prime you know Prime move behind open AI in the sense that it was created because of discussions that I had with Larry pagee um back when he and I were were friends and St his house and and I talked to him about AI safety and and
Larry did not care about AI safety or at least at the time he didn’t um you know and at one point he called me a speciest for being pro-human and I’m like well what team are you on Larry uh still on team robot to be and
I’m like okay so at the time you know uh Google Google had had acquired deep mind they had uh probably 2/3 of all AI res you know probably two3 of all the AI researchers in the world mhm that basically infinite money and compute and the guy in
Charge you know Larry paage did not care about safety and even yelled at me um and and called me a specious Pro human so I don’t know if you know about humans they can change their mind and maybe you and Larry Paige can still can be friends once more I’d
Like to be friends with Larry again um he he’s he he got really the the the the the breaking of the friendship was over openingi um and specifically um I think the the key moment was recruiting Ilia s Sky um so I love Ilia he’s so brilliant il’s good
Good human uh smart good heart um and um that was that was a tough recruiting battle um it was mostly Demis on one side and me on the other both trying to IIA and Ilia went back and forth you know going to stay at Google he was
Going to leave then he was going to stay then he leave and and finally he he did agree to join openi that was one of the toughest recruiting battles we’ ever had and but that that was really the the Lynch pin for openi being successful and I was you
Know also instrumental in recruiting a number of other people and I provided all the funding in the beginning um over $40 million um and the name the the opening opening ey is supposed to mean open source and it was created as a nonprofit open source and
Now it is a closed source for maximum profit which I think is not good comma but like we talked about with war and leaders talking I do hope that there’s only a few folks working on this at the highest level I do hope you reinvigorate friendships here like I
Said I’d like to be friends again with Larry I haven’t seen him in ages um and we were friends for a very long time I met I met Larry P before he got funding for Google or actually I guess before he got Venture funding I think it he got
The first like 100k from I think back to or someone um it’s wild to think about all that happened and you’ve guys known each other that whole time just 20 years since maybe 98 or something yeah it’s crazy crazy how much has happened since then yeah 25 years
A lot of happens insane but you’re seeing the tension there like maybe delayed open source Del I yeah like what is the source that is open you know what I mean like there’s basically it’s a giant CSV file yeah yeah with a bunch of numbers
Yep um what do you do with that giant file of numbers you know how do you run like the amount of actual the lines of code is very small mhm um and and most of the work um the software work is in the in the curation
Of the data so it’s like trying to figure out what data is separating good data from Bad data like um like you can’t just crawl the internet because there’s a lot of junk out there um a huge percentage of websites have more noise than signal you know they’re
They’re because they’re just us for search engine optimization they’re literally just scan websites
Video “Elon Musk on OpenAI | Lex Fridman Podcast Clips” was uploaded on 11/17/2023 to Youtube Channel Lex Clips