A growing number of computer systems and data sets consisting of large, complex information have enabled the rise of artificial intelligence over the last few years. AI has the potential to be practical and profitable by being used in numerous applications such as machine learning, which provides a way for a system to locate patterns within large sets of data.
In modern times, AI is playing a significant role in a wide range of computer systems, including iPhones that recognize and translate voice, driverless cars that carry out complicated manoeuvres under their power, and robots in factories and homes that automate tasks.
AI has become increasingly important in research over the last few years, and it is now being used in several applications, such as the processing of vast amounts of data that lie at the heart of fields like astronomy and genomics, producing weather forecasts and climate models, and interpreting medical imaging images for signs of disease.
In a recent update to its privacy policy, X, the social media platform that used to be known as Twitter, stated it may train an AI model based on posts from users. According to Bloomberg early this week, X's recently updated privacy policy informs its users that the company is now collecting various kinds of information about its users, including biometric data, as well as their job history and educational background.
The data that X will be collecting on users appears to be more than what it has planned to do with them.
Another update to the company's policy specifies that it plans to use the data it collects along with other publicly available information to train its machine learning and artificial intelligence models based on the information it collects and other data sources.
Several schools are recommending the use of private data, such as text messages in direct messages, to train their models, according to The Office of Elon Musk, owner of the company and former CEO.
There is no reason to be surprised by this change.
According to Musk, his latest startup, xAI, was founded to help researchers and engineers in the enterprise build new products by utilizing data collected from the microblogging site and his latest startup, Twitter.
For accessing the company's data via an API, X charges companies using its API $42,000.
It was reported in April that X was removed from Microsoft's advertising platforms due to increased fees and, in response, had threatened to sue the company for allegedly using Twitter data illegally.
These fees increased after Microsoft reportedly pulled X from its advertising platforms. Elon Musk has called on AI research labs to halt work on systems that can compete with human intelligence, in a tweet published late Thursday.
Musk has called on several tech leaders to stop the development of systems that are at human levels of brightness.
Several AI labs have been strongly urged to cease training models more powerful than GPT-4, the newest version of the large language model software developed by the U.S. startup OpenAI, according to an open letter signed by Musk, Steve Wozniak, and 2020 presidential candidate Andrew Yang from the Future of Life Institute.
Founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Future of Life Institute is a non-profit organization dedicated to pushing forward the responsible and ethical development of artificial intelligence in the future. A few of the founders of the company include Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at MIT, and Jaan Tallinn, the co-founder of Skype.
Musk and Google's AI lab DeepMind, which is owned by Google, have previously agreed not to develop lethal autonomous weapons systems as part of the organization's previous campaign.
In an appeal to all AI labs, the institute said it was taking immediate steps to “pause for at least 6 months at least the training of AI systems with higher levels of power than the GPT-4.”
The GPT-4, which was released earlier this month, is believed to be a far more sophisticated version of the GPT-3 than its predecessor.
Researchers have been amazed to learn that ChatGPT, the viral artificial intelligence chatbot, has been able to mimic human-type responses when users ask its questions. In only two months after its launch in January this year, ChatGPT had accrued 100 million monthly active users, making it the fastest-growing application in the history of consumer applications.
A machine learning algorithm is trained by taking vast amounts of data from the internet at a time and applying it to write poetry in the style of William Shakespeare to draft legal opinions based on the facts in a case. However, some ethical and moral scholars have raised concerns that AI might also be abused for crime and misinformation purposes, which could lead to exploitation.
During CNBC's contact with OpenAI, the company was unable to comment immediately upon being contacted. Microsoft, the world's largest technology company whose headquarters are located in Redmond, Washington, has invested $10 billion in OpenAI, which is backed by the company.
Microsoft is also integrating its natural language processing technology, called GPT, into its Bing search engine for natural language search to make it more conversational and useful to users. There was a follow-up announcement from Google, which announced its line of conversational artificial intelligence (AI) products aimed at consumers.
According to Musk, AI, or artificial intelligence, may represent one of the biggest threats to civilization shortly. OpenAI was founded by Elon Musk and Sam Altman in 2015, though Musk left OpenAI's board in 2018 and therefore does not hold any stake in the company that he helped found. It has been his view that the organization has diverged from its original purpose several times lately, and he has voiced his opinion about the same.
There is also a race among regulators to get a grip on AI tools due to the rapid advance of technology in this area. In a report published on Wednesday, the United Kingdom announced the publication of a white paper on artificial intelligence, deferring the job of overseeing the use of such tools in different sectors by applying the existing laws within their jurisdictions.
