Elon Musk, Chief Executive Officer of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X speaks in the course of the Milken Conference 2024 Global Conference Sessions at The Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California, U.S., May 6, 2024.Â
David Swanson | Reuters
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, threatened to ban Apple devices from his firms on Monday after the iPhone maker announced a partnership with OpenAI.
In a series of posts on his social media platform X, Musk shared concerns about whether Apple and OpenAI will protect users’ information.
He called the software integration between the 2 firms “an unacceptable security violation,” and said Apple has “no clue what’s actually happening.”
Apple announced its long-awaited push into artificial intelligence on Monday, which included an update to its voice assistant Siri. As a part of the update, Siri can tap into OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT chatbot. Apple said users can be asked for permission to share their questions with ChatGPT, and their requests and data is not going to be logged.
“It’s patently absurd that Apple is not smart enough to make their very own AI, yet is by some means able to ensuring that OpenAI will protect your security & privacy!” Musk wrote after the event.
He specifically said that Apple devices can be banned if the corporate “integrates OpenAI on the OS level,” referring to Apple’s operating system.
Apple told CNBC that the corporate is using its own AI, and its integration with OpenAI is an optional feature.
Musk replied on to a post from Apple CEO Tim Cook and claimed he’ll ban Apple devices from his firms’ premises unless Cook decides to “stop this creepy spyware.” He added that his firms’ visitors can be asked to envision their Apple devices on the door.
Tesla, Musk’s largest company, employed 140,473 people worldwide as of Dec. 31. The corporate has implemented layoffs this yr exceeding 10% of headcount.
Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 and stepped down from its board in 2018. He’s been a vocal critic of the corporate and CEO Sam Altman of late. In March, Musk sued OpenAI and Altman, amongst others, alleging they abandoned the corporate’s founding mission to develop AI “for the advantage of humanity broadly.”
Musk raised $6 billion in a recent funding round for his would-be OpenAI competitor, xAI, whose first product, Grok, is supposed to function a politically incorrect answer to ChatGPT. Along with Tesla, SpaceX, and xAI, Musk is founding father of brain interface startup Neuralink and tunneling enterprise Boring Company.
Musk and OpenAI didn’t immediately reply to CNBC’s requests for comment.
— CNBC’s Steve Kovach and Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
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