Elon Musk wants to pause GPT-4 so Tesla can thrive

Elon Musk, the Tesla CEO, is calling for a six-month pause on the training of artificial intelligence systems more powerful than GPT-4 in order to give the systems time to mature. In spite of the fact that he is taking a circumspect view of the new and improving technology, he is cautious.

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Wait, what do you mean by that? There was a time when we were under the impression that Musk was a big fan of artificial intelligence. Tesla TSLA +0.55% (ticker: TSLA), a renowned car company, wants to build an AI company that will create smart cars that will drive themselves along with their owners or customers wherever they want to go. Furthermore, as of July 2022, Tesla had a workforce of 120 people working in software AI. And Tesla has hosted two artificial intelligence days to teach investors about the company’s AI efforts as well as recruit top AI scientists to work for the EV maker.

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As a matter of fact, Musk is always discussing artificial intelligence with investors. There were about 20 instances when the term “AI” was mentioned at Tesla’s investor event on March 1, including Ashok Elluswamy, Tesla’s director of Autopilot software, explaining Tesla’s approach to developing self-driving cars. ...Building...scalable self-driving systems, I think, [is] one of the hardest real-world AI problems out there right now... At Tesla, we are betting on AI, machine learning, and neural networks to help us build a general vision system and planning system.

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Musk, however, is not a fan of artificial intelligence -- and he's always been wary of it. “Full autonomy [in driving] is actually a software limitation rather than a hardware limitation. Full autonomy can be achieved through the use of hardware that already exists. The goal is really to develop an advanced narrow artificial intelligence for the car to be able to operate on,” Musk stated in his 2016 second-quarter earnings conference call in August of that year during Tesla's second-quarter earnings meeting. He then added, “Having a narrow understanding of AI means it won't be able to take over the world any time soon. However, it must be able to drive a car well."

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At the same event as Elluswamy, Musk also spoke about artificial intelligence. "So, I'm not really sure what to say. There are some good things being done in AI by Tesla, for example. It's not clear to me. My mind is racing, so I don't know what to say about this one, so I don't know what to say about it, you know? ”

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During Tesla's investor day, the seeds of the letter he signed seemed to have been germinating at the same time. "There should be some kind of regulatory authority or something that oversees AI development and just makes sure that it's operating in the public interest and not in the interest of private companies," Musk added.

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There is a strong suggestion in the letter from the Future of Life Institute that oversight should be maintained, along with a pause in the development of AI systems capable of surpassing GPT-4 in terms of their processing power.

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It's unclear whether or not this will have an impact on Tesla's self-driving efforts at the moment. There was no response from Tesla or Musk to requests for comment.

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The development of artificial intelligence is a sensible move, given the pace at which it is developing. There is also the possibility that Musk is making a shrewd move in order to help his company succeed in the future. The letter could be seen as a "measure taken by the tech industry to slow down Microsoft MSFT +0.63%, which is currently leading the race for AI dominance, with Google closely behind," according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives. "As for Tesla, this will be a double-edged sword as Musk will be taking the lead in spearheading the next phase of Tesla's software story, which will be its focus."

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In response to requests for comment, Alphabet (GOOGL) and Microsoft (MSFT) did not respond.

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Tesla has announced that it is selling its highest-level driver assistance software, which is called Full Self Driving, for $15,000. However, at the moment, the technology isn't good enough to allow cars to drive themselves on their own. Drivers are still required to supervise the products at all times in order to ensure that they are safe.

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Tesla is still facing some of the most bullish investors, including ARK Invest's Cathie Wood, who believes that self-driving software has the potential to unleash hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of dollars in stock market value over the next few years. In the next few years, Wood predicts that Tesla will be churning out about $280 billion in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization, or EBITDA, annually by 2026, with more than half of that coming from self-driving robotaxis. During the year 2022, Tesla generated an EBITDA of $19.2 billion.

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There appears to be no mention of Wood's name on the list of signees. The list appears to be made up primarily of academics, those who founded and cashed out of companies long ago, as well as heads of companies that do not have a horse in the AI race. Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple (AAPL), signed the contract. The same goes for Pinterest (PINS) co-founder Evan Sharp. Approximately 30% of the early signatories appear to be associated with universities or colleges. One of the most obviously linked names to an AI company that is publicly traded appears to be Musk.

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In the future, any factor that impacts Tesla's ability to develop self-driving cars will have a significant impact on the value of the company. However, investors weren't thinking about that on Wednesday. Shares of Tesla gained 2.5% on Tuesday, closing at $193.88, up from $193.87 on Wednesday. The S&P 500 SPX was up 0.38 percent and the Nasdaq Composite COMP was up 0.53%, respectively, adding 1.4% and 1.8%.