Elon Musk as soon as tried to purchase DeepMind as a result of he thought Google could not be trusted with superior AI, report says

- Elon Musk tried to purchase DeepMind forward of Google due to belief points, a brand new report says.
- Musk had issues that Google couldn’t be trusted with growing expertise as harmful as AI.
Elon Musk made a last-minute try to purchase DeepMind earlier than Google finalized its $500 million deal for the AI lab a decade in the past as a result of he feared the search large could not be trusted to create superior AI, based on a brand new report.
The billionaire made the bid for the London-based AI lab in direction of the tip of 2013 whereas elevating issues about how Google’s then-CEO Larry Web page would develop AI, based on the Wall Road Journal, which cited individuals conversant in the talks and Musk’s pondering. Google introduced it was shopping for DeepMind in January 2014.
Musk’s plans to purchase DeepMind had been casual and did not attain DeepMind’s board, the Journal reported.


DeepMind, based in 2010, is finest identified for growing AI packages that may be taught video games and both equal or beat human gamers. Examples embody its mastery of the technique recreation Go. The lab has turn out to be an more and more integral a part of Google’s AI ambitions, significantly as its core search enterprise comes underneath stress from Microsoft’s integration of superior AI into its rival Bing search engine.
On April 20, Google introduced that DeepMind can be combining with Google Mind, a separate AI unit fashioned in 2011, to create a brand new analysis staff that it stated would “considerably speed up” its progress with AI.
Elon Musk has turn out to be more and more vocal about AI. He has warned the expertise may result in “civilization destruction.” He has additionally criticized the rival AI lab he cofounded, OpenAI, for publicly rolling out instruments reminiscent of ChatGPT regardless of points reminiscent of bias.
Musk, who left OpenAI’s board in 2018, has been significantly crucial of the commercialization of AI, suggesting in an interview with Fox Information final month that he put plenty of effort into creating OpenAI as “a counterweight to Google.”
“I form of took my eye off the ball, I assume, and they’re now closed-source and they’re clearly for-profit and so they’re carefully allied with Microsoft,” Musk stated within the interview.
Regardless of the issues Musk claims to have about AI, Insider reported in April that the billionaire Tesla and Twitter CEO was transferring forward together with his personal AI mission at Twitter, having bought round 10,000 graphics processing models usually used to work on massive AI fashions.
Musk, Google, and DeepMind didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.