Silicon Valley Whispers: New GPT Speculation

As the field of artificial intelligence continues to evolve at a dizzying pace, a new contender is poised to enter the playing field. TruthGPT, an AI chatbot proposed by tech billionaire Elon Musk, is generating a lot of buzz online.But what is TruthGPT? Why does Elon Musk want to create it? And how will it be different from the AI tools we already have?

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What Is TruthGPT?

TruthGPT is a proposed AI model aimed at addressing the ills of existing models that powers the likes of ChatGPT and Bard, with particular emphasis on truth and safety. According to Elon Musk, TruthGPT will be a “maximum truth-seeking” AI that understands the nature of the universe and would be unlikely to destroy humanity because it sees humans as a critical component of the universe.

Maximum truth-seeking AI? Understand the nature of the universe?

You’ll be forgiven if Musk’s description doesn’t give you a clear picture of what exactly he’s trying to build. However, you’ll get a better idea of what he’s talking about by looking at why he’s trying to build it in the first place.

Why Is Elon Musk Building TruthGPT?

In an interview with Fox News , Elon Musk expressed his concerns about how big AI firms can perpetuate bias and disinformation through AI chatbots—an emerging tool people increasingly depend on for information. Elon Musk also commented on the threat AI poses to humanity, emphasizing the possibility of an AI apocalypse, a scenario where AI systems could take control of our daily lives.

Singling out companies like OpenAI and Google, who, in his view, are not doing enough in the areas of AI safety and guarding against disinformation, Elon Musk proposed a third force—TruthGPT. The SpaceX and Tesla CEO wants to create TruthGPT as a counterweight to Google’s Bard and OpenAI’s ChatGPT. The idea is to create an AI model that tries as much as possible to be truthful in the information it provides.

Elon Musk, who recently authored an open letter calling for a moratorium on the development of powerful AI models (specifically those more powerful than GPT-4), believes AI is moving too fast. He believes we need to slow down and reevaluate our approach to AI safety before AI “takes control.” TruthGPT is a large language model (LLM) that promises to address these two core concerns with today’s AI systems.

What Would TruthGPT Look Like?

The first hint into how TruthGPT would look is in the name. Considering the “GPT” appendage, TruthGPT will likely have a similar architecture to ChatGPT. Remember, Elon Musk helped assemble OpenAI and the team that built ChatGPT’s GPT model.

Also, considering GPT’s architecture has proven to be both a technical and commercial success, pursuing a different path will likely be too time-consuming and costly. Time is one thing that Elon Musk doesn’t have if he’s to build something that can truly stand toe to toe with state-of-the-art AI as soon as possible. So, don’t get too hyped—TruthGPT might not be that radically different from the AI tools we already have.

The accuracy, or in Elon Musk’s lingo, “truthfulness,” of an AI model depends heavily on its training data and the training algorithm. We are not exactly sure how TruthGPT’s training data would be sourced, but to get the best chance of building an LLM that’s as “truthful” as possible, Elon Musk’s TruthGPT would have to prioritize data from “truthful sources.” But that’s precisely the problem. Truth is a very subjective concept. What is true for me might not be true for you.

So, is this idea of a maximum truth-seeking AI even practical?

Why Building TruthGPT Is a Huge Challenge

Once you understand how large language models like GPT work , it becomes clear that it is impractical to be correct at all times. Typically trained on a large dataset of internet data, a lot of it is, predictably, going to be false information, and LLM’s have no inert way of telling fact from fiction.

The best intervention is typically from human trainers who try to teach the language model what’s good behavior and what’s bad. But human trainers are biased. Bias is passed to the AI models , defeating the whole purpose of a “maximum truth-seeking AI.” Note, we’re not talking about outright bias or prejudice against a people or otherwise. It’s the more subtle bias about how you interpret language, situations, challenges, and so on that leach into the process. Humans are human, after all.

Of course, accuracy can also be tackled from the algorithm side. However, irrespective of the algorithm, language ambiguity still represents a big problem for the accuracy of AI models. Even humans often struggle to accurately interpret a sentence or phrase’s meaning, leading to misinformation. For AI models, ambiguity can lead to misinterpretations resulting in inaccuracies.

For Musk, TruthGPT appears to be a chance for him to carve an AI model that he sees fit to deliver the truth. How that would come about without introducing his own biases is another question entirely and effectively leads us back to the start of the conversation. How are Musk’s opinions on what is biased or not any different from those who trained and directed ChatGPT?

Is TruthGPT an Exciting Possibility?

Elon Musk’s plans for TruthGPT seem noble and commendable. However, building an AI model with a negligible incidence of inaccuracies is a tough task.

While we’d expect a tech billionaire who has demystified rocket science to be able to pull off something of this nature, some things are easier said than done.

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