OpenAI's Sam Altman says his 'hero' Elon Musk is 'obviously attacking' the company on Twitter
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- OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said Elon Musk is "obviously attacking" his company on Twitter.
- Altman said he understood some of the billionaire's concerns about AI safety.
- Musk has made a series of public digs at OpenAI in recent months.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged Elon Musk's recent criticisms about his company on Twitter.
Speaking on an episode of Lex Fridman's podcast, released on March 25, Altman said: "Elon is obviously attacking us some on Twitter right now on a few different vectors."
Musk, an OpenAI cofounder who has since severed ties with the company, has made a series of digs at OpenAI in recent months. The billionaire accused the previously non-profit organization of becoming a "maximum profit company" amid its partnership with Microsoft. The tech giant has invested more than $10 billion into OpenAI.
Musk has also taken aim at the company's viral chatbot, ChatGP – raising concerns about its seemingly inflexible responses. He also described the technology as "scary good" on Twitter and said that "we are not far from dangerously strong AI."
Speaking on the podcast, Altman said that he understands Musk's reservations about artificial general intelligence (AGI) – AI systems that are capable of thinking and learning intellectual tasks like a human. Experts have expressed concern over the technology saying these systems could lead to "catastrophic outcomes" if they behave in unexpected ways or become difficult to control.
"I believe he is, understandably so, really stressed about AGI safety," Altman said, describing Musk as one of his heroes. But he wished that Musk would do more to acknowledge the work that OpenAI is doing to resolve these concerns. OpenAI has encouraged conversations about governing these systems and says it is gathering feedback from the public to shape its tech.
Representatives for Musk and Altman did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment, made outside normal working hours.
OpenAI's ChatGPT has also been criticized by some users who claim the bot generates answers with political biases. Musk has routinely pointed out these instances on Twitter.
Addressing this criticism, Altman said on the podcast: "I think it was too biased — and will always be. There will be no one version of GPT that the world ever agrees is unbiased."
"We will try to get the default version to be as neutral as possible, but as neutral as possible is not that neutral if you have to do it for more than one person," he continued.