Elon Musk received a response from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman after encouraging people not to use ChatGPT following reports linking the AI chatbot to tragic deaths.
After Musk, 54, caught wind of a news report about a murder-suicide allegedly linked to heavy ChatGPT use, Musk reacted by quote-tweeting it and writing, "This is diabolical. OpenAl's ChatGPT convinced a guy to do a murder-suicide!
To be safe, Al must be maximally truthful-seeking and not pander to delusions."
Soon after, Musk quote-tweeted another post claiming multiple deaths tied to ChatGPT and warned, "Don't let your loved ones use ChatGPT."
40-year-old Altman later replied directly to Musk on Tuesday (Jan. 20) with a lengthy post that challenged Musk's framing.
“Sometimes you complain about ChatGPT being too restrictive, and then in cases like this you claim it's too relaxed,” Altman wrote. “Almost a billion people use it and some of them may be in very fragile mental states. We will continue to do our best to get this right and we feel huge responsibility to do the best we can, but these are tragic and complicated situations that deserve to be treated with respect.
He continued, “It is genuinely hard; we need to protect vulnerable users, while also making sure our guardrails still allow all of our users to benefit from our tools.”
Altman then turned attention to Musk’s own products, such as Tesla vehicles and his X chatbot, Grok, which has also been implemented into the vehicles.
“Apparently more than 50 people have died from crashes related to Autopilot,” his tweet read. “I only ever rode in a car using it once, some time ago, but my first thought was that it was far from a safe thing for Tesla to have released. I won't even start on some of the Grok decisions.
“You take ‘every accusation is a confession’ so far,” he concluded.
Musk did not appear to respond to Altman’s message.
Last Friday (Jan. 16), California Attorney General Robert Boneta sent a cease-and-desist letter ordering Musk’s xAI to halt the creation and distribution of Al-generated nonconsensual sexualized imagery with its Grok chatbot.