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Elon Musk takes a dig at Bill Gates, says he's understanding of AI is 'limited'
29 Mar, 2023 / 01:45 AM / OMNES Media LLC

Source: http://www.mashable.com

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Mashable: The feud between Musk and Gates goes back a long way.

Elon Musk took a Twitter shot at Bill Gates and his AI knowledge on Monday. This is what Musk tweeted: "I remember the early meetings with Gates. His understanding of AI was limited. Still is." This tweet was written in response to one that praised Gates' work with OpenAI and his optimistic outlook on AI, as per Insider.

I remember the early meetings with Gates. His understanding of AI was limited. Still is.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 27, 2023
Gates recently wrote a blog article about the potential impact of AI on various industries, including employment, healthcare, and education. Since 2016, Gates has interacted with the OpenAI team, most recently in September of 2022.

This drama can be traced back to OpenAI's early days. In 2015, Musk co-founded OpenAI with five other Silicon Valley entrepreneurs who collectively donated $1 billion to the startup. His criticism of OpenAI and its partnership with Microsoft led him to resign from the board of directors in 2018.

Musk stated in February that OpenAI, which was established as a non-profit with an open-source model, is now "a closed-source maximum-profit enterprise effectively controlled by Microsoft."

Microsoft has licensed AI technology after investing $1 billion in OpenAI in 2019. Since then, Microsoft has introduced a new version of its Bing search engine developed in partnership with OpenAI and announced plans to make a "multiyear, multimillion-dollar" investment in the firm.

Despite his current enthusiasm for OpenAI, Gates was not always a fan. Gates reportedly had doubts about the company's technology when Microsoft first considered a partnership with it, as reported by The Information. The billionaire was reportedly extremely active in studying OpenAI's technology in preparation for the 2019 alliance, and he had doubts about the potential of artificial intelligence to interpret and understand human speech.

According to a report, OpenAI co-founders Sam Altman and others turned down Elon Musk's offer to take over the company in early 2018.

The feud between Musk and Gates goes back a long way. In 2020, when the two billionaires initially clashed over the gravity of the COVID-19 outbreak, Gates saying that he opted for an electric Porsche Taycan instead of a Tesla and Musk saying that his "conversations with Gates have been underwhelming" that same year. In addition to making jokes about Gates' weight, Tesla's CEO has accused him of shorting the company's shares.