Why Elon Musk wants artificial intelligence to be regulated?

Tesla and Twitter CEO Elon Musk has asked the US government to bring artificial intelligence into the fold of regulation while stressing that AI stresses him out. Musk has also confirmed reports that he has hired an AI researcher to work on developing alternatives to ChatGPT and Google's Bard.

Speaking about artificial intelligence at an event on Wednesday, Elon Musk said, “I'm a little worried about the AI stuff…We need some kind of, like, regulatory authority or something overseeing AI development.”

Also Read: Elon Musk hires AI researchers to develop ChatGPT rival

“Make sure it's operating in the public interest. It's quite dangerous technology. I fear I may have done some things to accelerate it,” the billionaire added.

Notably, Musk was one of the co-founders of OpenAI- the company famous for creating the conversational AI chatbot ChatGPT. Ever since its launch in November last year, ChatGPT has been dominating the news cycle while garnering millions of users in the process. 

Over the past few weeks, Musk has been pointing out flaws in the controversial chatbot while also criticizing its maker San Francisco-based startup OpenAI.

In a reply to a tweet on Feb 17, Musk wrote, “OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it “Open” AI), non-profit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, the maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft.”

Also Read: 'Not what I intended…': OpenAI co-founder Elon Musk as ChatGPT craze continues

The billionaire businessman had resigned from the board of OpenAI in 2018  to avoid any future conflict as Tesla expanded into the AI field.

Meanwhile, Musk has not been shy about integrating artificial intelligence with Tesla products. Recently, during the Tesla investor day, Elon Musk unveiled the ‘Master Plan3’, a part of a series of papers that utilizes AI in a bid to expand Tesla and aims at converting the world to clean energy.

However, Musk has rejected any notion of AI helping manufacture cars anytime soon going on to the extent of saying, “At that point ... there's no point in any of us working.”

The Twitter CEO is also skeptical about self-driving cars, even as many executives from his own company gave presentations on how Tesla is using AI to train cars to drive themselves. 

Talking about Tesla's efforts in making self-driving cars, Musk said “I don't know. Tesla is doing good things in AI…This one stresses me out. I don't know what to say about it.”

(With inputs from Reuters)