On Tuesday, OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman said that the company is building safeguards that will prevent ChatGPT from discussing suicide or flirting with minors. The parents of a 16-year-old recently sued the company, alleging the chatbot contributed to their son's suicide.
"We have to separate users who are under 18 from those who aren't," Altman wrote in a blog post, adding, "We’re building an age-prediction system to estimate age based on how people use ChatGPT. If there is doubt, we’ll play it safe and default to the under-18 experience. In some cases or countries we may also ask for an ID; we know this is a privacy compromise for adults but believe it is a worthy tradeoff." He went on to say that OpenAI is exploring new rules and training to prevent ChatGPT from generating "flirtatious talk" or engaging "in discussions about suicide of [sic] self-harm" when interacting with minors.
Altman published the blog post shortly before the Senate held a hearing evaluating chatbots and the dangers they pose to young people.
Meta forms AI super PAC to dominate industry
Last month, Meta formed a state super PAC in California to advocate for its interests in artificial intelligence and oppose those of other firms seeking to command the AI industry. From The Verge:
Thanks to a unique corporate ownership structure that gives him complete control of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg has essentially created his own personal California super PAC, allowing him to spend Meta’s money on politically protecting his priorities in the heart of the tech industry — and, possibly, against the interests of his corporate rivals. Meta confirmed that the company plans to spend tens of millions of dollars as part of the initial investment and said that it would figure out who had ultimate decision-making power over candidates to back, and whether Meta’s own social media products were used to promote those candidates, once the super PAC was up and running.
"It's essentially a way for [Zuckerberg] to spend the company's money on his political choices, whereas at a company like Google, there's not a single person who's a majority shareholder who can dictate what the company does," Rick Hasen, a UCLA law professor specializing in election law, told The Verge. "It's interesting, because Zuckerberg could just spend his own personal money to do this. But instead, he's doing it through the company."
Meta has previously used its wealth to kneecap rival social media giants, including TikTok.
Scenes from Peter Thiel's latest 'Antichrist' lecture
On Monday, Palantir cofounder Peter Thiel delivered a lecture on "the biblical Antichrist" in San Francisco, during which he purportedly warned of the creation of a "one-world government."
"We'll either have the one government that destroys technology and takes over, or you have the AI that destroys everything," one attendee told the San Francisco Standard while summarizing Thiel's off-the-record talk.
The antichrist is an obsession of Thiel's. In June, the billionaire discussed the topic at length with New York Times columnist Ross Douthat, saying, "The way the Antichrist would take over the world is you talk about Armageddon nonstop… It’s the opposite of the picture of Baconian science from the 17th, 18th century, where the Antichrist is like some evil tech genius."
Apart from cofounding Palantir, a leading data mining company, Thiel is also the chairman of its board. Palantir has billions of dollars in contracts with the U.S. military and has provided Israel with AI and analytics tools to help prosecute its genocide in Gaza.
Tesla shares surge after Musk's $1 billion stock buy
Late last week, Tesla chief executive Elon Musk purchased around $1 billion worth of company shares, sending the stock on a multi-day winning streak that finally ended on Thursday. The buy, which was made through a trust and reported in a regulatory filing on Monday, marked the first time that Musk has traded Tesla stock since 2022, when he sold part of his stake to finance his acquisition of Twitter. The last time he purchased Tesla shares was in February 2020.
The rally this week resulted in Tesla more than recovering from the steep losses it suffered while Musk was working for the Trump administration. Tesla's share price was up 9.91% on the year when the market closed on Thursday.
Oligarch Overview
In a virtual speaking appearance before a far-right anti-immigration protest in London, Musk called for a "revolutionary" change to the United Kingdom's government. He also seemingly attempted to incite the crowd, saying, "Violence is coming to you. You either fight back or you die." Musk made the comments while speaking to Tommy Robinson, a prominent English fascist. There were 24 arrests during the protest, while the Metropolitan Police Service reported injuries to 26 of its officers. (CNN)
A proposed class action lawsuit filed last week accused Tesla of preferring to hire H-1B visa holders over American workers. "While visa workers make up just a fraction of the United States labor market, Tesla prefers to hire these candidates over U.S. citizens, as it can pay visa-dependent employees less than American employees performing the same work, a practice in the industry known as 'wage theft,'" the complaint reads. (Reuters)
OpenAI, Meta, Alphabet, xAI, and Snap are facing a Federal Trade Commission investigation over the "negative impacts" of AI on minors. (New York Times)
In a rare interview, Tesla Chairwoman Robyn Denholm stated that the board would not impose restrictions on Musk's political activities as part of his proposed $1 trillion compensation package. Denholm also claimed that she is "not concerned about [Musk] not spending enough time or energy at Tesla." That assertion appears to contradict the filing that Tesla's board submitted outlining the pay package, which noted, "A majority of Mr. Musk's wealth is now derived from other business ventures outside of Tesla, and he has more attractive options today than ever before." Musk requires the immense compensation deal, the board's filing added, to keep him from "prioritizing other ventures." (New York Times)
On Tuesday, Musk issued a company-wide email asking xAI employees to "send a one page summary of what you’ve accomplished in the past four weeks and what you intend to accomplish in the next four weeks." He then demanded responses by Thursday afternoon. Musk pulled similar productivity stunts when he first acquired Twitter and when he was leading the White House's Department of Government Efficiency. (CNN)
Several xAI executives who recently left the company reportedly quit after disagreements with Musk's personal advisers, including over the role that the billionaire's family office "played in managing some of xAI's cash and accounting." (Wall Street Journal)
OpenAI has hired Mike Liberatore, the former chief financial officer of xAI, who left the Musk company in July. The hire is the latest shot in Altman's raging feud with Elon Musk. Also this week, the lead architect at the Boring Company, Musk's tunneling and transit project, quit to join a transportation startup backed by Altman. (Reuters)
The Boring Company paused its construction at a site in Las Vegas last week following a "crushing injury" to one of its workers. (Fortune)
Starlink, the satellite internet provider operated by Musk's SpaceX, suffered another severe outage on Monday. The Ukrainian military, which relies on Starlink, stated that the blackout affected their operations. The incident marked Starlink's third network outage since late July. (Reuters)
Last week, Musk's artificial intelligence company fired at least 500 workers on its data annotation team. The team, which was reduced by about one-third, is instrumental in the development of xAI's Grok chatbot. (Business Insider)
OpenAI released research this week examining how ChatGPT is actually being used. Among the findings was a notable jump in users relying on the chatbot for personal use, as opposed to work-related tasks. Researchers also found that 75% of ChatGPT use involved "practical guidance, seeking information and writing." (CNBC)
Tesla settled two lawsuits related to a 2019 crash involving a vehicle using the company's Autopilot driver assistance system. (Reuters)
Pope Leo XIV criticized Musk's proposed Tesla compensation package. "Yesterday [there was] the news that Elon Musk is going to be the first trillionaire in the world. What does that mean and what’s that about? If that is the only thing that has value anymore, then we’re in big trouble." (Crux)
Does Altman want a medal or something for this? should’ve been obvious from the start.
My first reaction upon hearing this was, "Why wasn't this obvious from the get go?"