Elon Says Copyright/AI Lawsuits Don’t Matter Because ‘Digital God’ Will Arrive Before They’re Decided
from the that's-not-how-any-of-this-works dept
So, we already wrote about the biggest headline grabbing moment from Elon Musk’s Dealbook interview with Andrew Ross Sorkin yesterday, but there was another crazy, Techdirt-relevant one involving copyright and AI. As we’ve explained over and over again, copyright is the wrong tool to use to regulate AI, and using it will lead to bad outcomes.
But, absolutely nothing in this bit of the interview made any sense at all (from either side):
It starts out with a drop dead ignorantly wrong question from Aaron Ross Sorkin, who seems wholly unprepared for this:
ARS: So, one of the things about training on data, has been this idea that you’re not going to train on… or these things are not being trained on people’s copyrighted information. Historically. That’s been the concept.
Elon: Yeah that’s a huge lie.
ARS: Say that again.
Elon: These AIs are all trained on copyrighted data. Obviously.
ARS: So you think it’s a lie when OpenAI says that… none of these guy say that they’re training on copyrighted data.
Elon: Yeah, that’s a lie.
ARS: It’s a lie. Straight up?
Elon: Straight up lie.
So… there’s a lie in there, but it’s Andrew Ross Sorkin saying that any AI company claims that it doesn’t train on copyright-covered data. Everyone admits that. They say that doing so is fair use (because it is). So the entire premise of this discussion is wrong. Here’s OpenAI admitting in court that, of course, it trains on copyright covered material. It’s just that it believes fair use allows that (because it does).
So, in one sense here, Elon is right to push back on Sorkin’s claim. But Musk is misleading, because he appears to buy into the false premise of Sorkin’s question that AI companies say they’re not training on copyright-protected data. If Musk had any idea what he was doing he would have told Sorkin his premise was wrong, and that no companies deny training on such material.
From there, Sorkin goes on an even more confused discussion, claiming that while snippets of articles on ExTwitter are fair use, because, combined, people might post a full article, it might not be any more… but that’s… not how any of this works anyway. Someone give him a Copyright 101 lesson, because this is embarrassing.
Either way, Musk then made the whole thing… um… fucking weird. Because as Sorkin kept trying to press Musk on the copyright lawsuits, Musk did this:
Musk: I don’t know, except to say that by the time these lawsuits are decided we’ll have Digital God. So, you can ask Digital God at that point. Um. These lawsuits won’t be decided on a timeframe that’s relevant.
If someone you knew started saying stuff like that, you’d have them checked out.
Whether or not you believe that AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) is on the way or not, or that it might create “Digital God,” the idea that this is coming before these lawsuits are decided is… um… not realistic. But, even if we do somehow reach AGI within the next few years as these lawsuits play out, the idea that such an AGI would obsolete the courts and/or copyright law is similarly wishful thinking.
Hell, we’ve argued for years that the internet itself has already obsoleted copyright laws, but they’re still sticking around and getting dumber all the time. I’d love for it to be true that technology further obsoletes copyright law and moves things to a better overall system… but it’s not going to happen because “Digital God.”
Of course, perhaps if Elon truly thinks Digital God is coming in the next few years, it explains why he doesn’t care about advertisers on ExTwitter any more.
Filed Under: andrew ross sorkin, copyright, digital god, elon musk, fair use
Companies: openai, twitter, x, xai
Comments on “Elon Says Copyright/AI Lawsuits Don’t Matter Because ‘Digital God’ Will Arrive Before They’re Decided”
Someone needs to sit down with Elon and tell him to shut the fuck up. The more he speaks, the more he destroys his own “genius” mystique—and that’s not good for his businesses.
Re:
I don’t think his problem is that not enough people have told him to shut the fuck up.
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They need to yell harder. Maybe hit him with a rolled-up newspaper, too.
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“Maybe hit him with a rolled-up newspaper, too.”
At this point, anything less than a sledgehammer is insufficient.
Re: Re: Re:2
Impact drill?
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Is that before or after he fires them for telling him to shut up..
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It just makes his opinions worse.
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He doesn’t strike me as the type of person who’d be willing to listen to anyone.
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I think that’s long gone at this point, outside of a small number of cultists.
I forget who originated it, but there’s a quote that goes something like “I know nothing about cars, people said he was a genius with cars so I believed them. I know nothing about rockets, so when people said he was a genius I believed them. I know a lot about software, and Musk has said the dumbest things I’ve ever heard about it, so I now know he’s not a genius and will avoid his cars and rockets”.
He’s probably even destroyed the mystique around CEOs generally as well. At one time I might have conceded that there’s some work involved even if they tend to earn too much money even while failing, but this guy is CEO of several companies and seems to spend his whole time shitposting on Twitter. At least others tended to pretend to work for a living.
Media should quit covering him
If he were born in the USA, he’d be the republican front runner at this point. The reds have shown they prefer people with huge egos and ability to ramble on about things they know nothing about.
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Wait, so…if he were eligible, he’d be a likely candidate for president, and…that’s why the media…shouldn’t cover him?
Re: Re:
Well, sort of. In a roundabout way.
The kinds of people that make it to the top of the Republican ticket are the same kinds of people that aren’t saying anything worth listening to.
Re: Re: Re:
To wit: Ron DeSantis.
Has Must been examined by a doctor recenting?
Frankly, the craziness and insanity that he’s been spewing recently is making me think that he has a medical problem that’s affecting him mentally.
Re:
It’s not medical, it’s ideological.
Much harder to treat a belief.
Re: Re: its malignant narcissism.
plain and simple. Same with Trump. I have witnessed narcissism in different forms up close and personal my whole life. This is textbook. what makes it a lot worse than my mom or any other random person is the wealth and power he weilds. Which both makes him more dangerous but also his narcissism more unchecked.
He surrounds himself with yesmen. That’s a narcissist’s wet dream. Constant adulation, ever word out of their mouth is profound to those around them, etc.
There is no cure for narcissism. Self awareness is the only thing that can check it, and I’d venture human beings would go extinct before Musk got an ounce of self awareness in him…
Careful, Elon... You're playing with fire!
If Digital God exists, then that means Digital God can create a simulation of the universe. If one simulation exists, then multiple can exist. Meaning, by using AI to resolve AI’s copyright “problems”, we’ve opened the can of worms that we might live in a simulation!
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Oh no
we’re living in… THE SIMS 4
Re: Re: Or worse...
We’re living in Dwarf Fortress.
Re: Multiverses are not allowed under existing copyright law
Courts have never found that creating new universes based on existing universes is fair use. You could make a substantially different universe but infinite universes obviously violates the DMCA. And good luck creating a stable universe without violating the fine structure constant patent.
Re: Re:
“You wouldn’t steal an infinite number of cars, in as many worlds that you illegally created.”
Re: Re: Re:
Fuck you times infinity, I would if I could. 🙃
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Re: Re: Re:2
Slide into my DMs, you queer thang, you!
Re: Re: Re:3
The best part about Techdirt is when Stephen T Stone says “IT’S STEPHEN T STONING TIME” and Stephen T Stones all over the place.
Do you think “fair use” would allow a film student to go to Pirate Bay and download every Disney movie he can find?
Fair use allows him to learn from the movies and produce works that imitate their style, but the first step is still to buy a legitimate copy of the movies.
And AI developers generally haven’t bother with that step, because it’s too expensive. Their copy of training data is no different than any other pirated file.
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Uh, no, but this isn’t how fair use works. 17 U.S.C. 107 clearly states:
This section doesn’t bar a finding of fair use in other scenarios that are not delineated within. If your interpretation of fair use was realized, it would make even making AI completely impossible to begin with, because in order to make an LLM you need an incredibly large corpus of data. The total licensing cost of that would be potentially in the trillions of dollars, if not quadrillions. So I’m pretty sure a court would find that trying to make fair use in those circumstances inapplicable would make the burden on those who wish to use the work far too burdensome and therefore would annul the original complaint of copyright infringement to begin with. And we’re just talking about LLMs! If you want to make it impossible to train actually good AIs, then we can realize your ridiculous notion of fair use. But even realizing that kind of interpretation risks running afoul of the copyright clause, which is very clear: “[the United States Congress shall have power] To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.” The important part is “promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”. Making it untenable to make AIs without paying impossible-to-pay copyright licensing fees would go against that part of the clause, because AIs, in order to be as good as they can be, need huge datasets.
Re: Re:
If the only way to make an LLM requires breaking the law, then it’s illegal to make an LLM.
Not that it actually requires “quadrillions” of dollars. Some content libraries have offered to license their collections for the purpose of training LLMs, with royalties paid to the authors. But AI developers should not expect to get something for nothing.
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“That post can’t stop me because I can’t read!”
Re: Re: Re:2
I did read. You didn’t find a basis for fair use in the law, so you invented another one: fair use is when you can’t afford to pay for something you need to complete your project. Unfortunately for you, that’s not actually fair use.
Re: Re: Re:3
So education of people is not fair use, then.
Re: Re: Re:4
“So education of people is not fair use, then.”
Not in any educational establishment that isn’t wholly funded by the state, according to your disingenuous interpretation of fair use. The fact is that fair use (fair dealing in other countries) doesn’t apply only when you can’t afford licensing fees. It applies when you can show that your copying and subsequent use falls within one of the narrow exceptions to copyright law regardless of ability to pay fees, and you can be found guilty of copyright infringement if your copying and subsequent use don’t fall within one of the narrow exceptions, and any complaint of “But I couldn’t afford the licensing fees!” would very quickly get short shrift.
Re: Re: Re:5
So everyone should remain dumb if they’re poor, then.
And stay in their corp-assigned positions unless they “prove to be capable” without any sort of proof proving they deserve a promotion (that they should pay for).
No upward class/economic mobility then. 90%, if not more, should remain serfs or worse, slaves.
Because, as you said, education, unless it’s “state-owned”, is not fair use or free and the price determined by copyright maximalists, then.
Re: Re: Re:6
The law is the law. You can’t legally pirate a textbook, even if you need it to pass a class and you can’t afford to pay for it.
Whether or not that should be the law is a separate argument. But when you’re sued for pirating a book, that argument won’t make any difference.
Re: Re: Re:7
That’s a fair point to make, and why you don’t see publishers suing students for pirating their books – the publishers know that there’s no money to take, and shitting on poor students over what’s generally considered a universal good like education is pretty shit for PR. It’s the distributors they go after.
Now things are a little murkier when it comes to university students and researchers downloading from Sci-Hub instead of paying Elsevier, but Elsevier has long since indicated that they’re entirely willing to look like moneygrubbers, to the point where the governments of Taiwan and Germany and other countries have basically told their universities to tell Elsevier to go fuck themselves instead of paying their exorbitant asking prices. Sympathy for publishers is as close to rock bottom as it’s been, and frankly, the publishers mostly did it to themselves.
Re: Re: Re:7
Oh, I am familiar with your shitty copyright maximalist argument.
And to that, I say, if the product I have to pay for is garbage, I don’t get to find a better product?
That you also seem to hate education as fair use is also telling, and I am all for reasonably spending for your education.
Since if education is a premium, then only the rich can afford it, and the poor are left to rot.
Is that what you want? A class divide so apparent that Karl Marx is the only way to change things? Or worse, a general violent revolt?
After all, if even trying to communicate involves breaking the law…
Re: Re:
Right on, the copyright cult is always about making the profits more important than “the progress of science and useful art”. It always about their entitlement and copyright monopolies aka “intellectual properties”. It always more about benefits for them than benefits for thr public.
Re: Nice straw man ya got there....
Has OpenAI and/or other LLM developer downloaded from Pirate Bay, that you know of? Even once?
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ChatGPT developers allegedly downloaded pirated books from Z-library, which is no better than Pirate Bay as far as the law is concerned.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/22/zadie-smith-stephen-king-and-rachel-cusks-pirated-works-used-to-train-ai
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Bless Z-Library. Can’t stop the signal!
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Re: Re: Re:2 data wants to be free
= I want free stuff
Re: Re: Re:3
Indeed! Free stuff for everyone. Death to idea landlords.
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There is actually a significant legal difference between simple downloading and torrenting, in that torrenting involves redistribution. There are many cases downloading “pirate” copies is perfectly legal.
Re: Re: Re:2
So does downloading an ebook from a website. The difference is that redistribution via torrent is a multi-user multi-source process instead of a single-user single-source process.
Re: Re: Re:3
Not in the same way as torrenting. nice attempt at disingenuity, though.
Re: Re: Re:2
You can legally download a pirated copy of a work only if you paid for a legitimate copy of the work. So it is illegal to download a copyright protected work without paying, even if you do not upload it to anyone else.
From a practical perspective, you are more likely to be sued if you upload a work than if you download it (because there are no exceptions for the former).
However, the AI developers in this lawsuit never paid for legitimate copies of the works in question.
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“You can legally download a pirated copy of a work only if you paid for a legitimate copy of the work.”
You’d best let Project Gutenberg know that, then. I’ve been downloading Charles Dicken’s books from them without paying anything for years, and they were pirated in the 19th century.
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First, how do you know how the content was accessed to create the training data? You’re just guessing here.
Second, that is irrelevant to whether or not the use is infringing, which is what’s at issue here. They aren’t being sued for copying the training data; they’re being sued for using that data to train AI.
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If developers pirated books to train their LLM, then the use is irrelevant.
And AI developers are being sued because they allegedly obtained training data from pirate websites.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/aug/22/zadie-smith-stephen-king-and-rachel-cusks-pirated-works-used-to-train-ai
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Perhaps you should actually read what the lawsuit claims before making sweeping statements.
I’ll leave it up to you to read and actually understand the lawsuit since there is no point explaining it to you until you do: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.cand.415175/gov.uscourts.cand.415175.1.0_1.pdf
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“…the first step is still to buy a legitimate copy of the movies.”
I don’t have to buy anything that’s in the Public Domain if I don’t want to. There’s always going to somewhere to get it for free, and I don’t have to feed the Disney Monster with my hard-earned cash.
Rapture
Digital God and Elon go to Mars. The tech bros version of Rapture
“Musk: I don’t know, except to say that by the time these lawsuits are decided we’ll have Digital God. So, you can ask Digital God at that point. Um. These lawsuits won’t be decided on a timeframe that’s relevant.”
Possibly, he thinks that AI will replace religious leaders.
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“For Digital God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten techbro , Elon, that whoever believeth in him should not suffer the woke mind virus, but have everlasting racism and anti-semitism.”
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It’s a play for tax exemption…
Re: About that...
Seems like he’s not the only one ;p
From The Register:
AI threatens to automate away the clergy
So sayeth the [my own] free speech absolutist.
It is fascinating how fast Musk is in becoming the richest lolcow on the internet.
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LMFAO. As if TechDirt would give-up the engagement that comes from their writing ceaselessly about Musk and Twitter. He’s like Donald Trump was to the failing lamestream media!
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You put on clown shows, people gonna watch. People gonna talk about it.
Sorry that the people who laugh at clowns because they’re stupid say different stuff from the people who like clowns because they think they’re awesome. But pretty sure that the clown fans talk waaaay more about the clowns than the, uh, lamestream sheeple.
Re: You didn’t think your cleaver plan all the way through did ya?
And here you are, driving up said engagement.
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Re: Re:
Of course I’m participating in the discussion! I love watching TD readers devote time to libeling Musk!
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What libel? Perhaps you think the low opinions people have about Musk is libel?
I’ll just add that it’s weird that you “love” people having opinions about Musk, like really really weird.
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“I love watching TD readers devote time to libeling Musk!”
Back to your fantasy world it is, then. You can’t libel the ocean by saying it’s salty, and you can’t libel Elon Musk by saying he’s ruined Twitter and doesn’t understand basic concepts.
Re: Re: Re:2
On the other hand, I kinda really want to see Musk being dumb enough to do a Prenda Law and file stacks of evidence in the form of Techdirt comments in a bid to subpoena all our personal information.
Not because I think he’d succeed, but because I still get a kick out of knowing that in John Steele’s rabid fury he put my comments calling him an assclown in the official record.
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“writing ceaselessly about Musk and Twitter. He’s like Donald Trump was to the failing lamestream media!”
Perhaps there is this so called ceaseless writing about Elmo and his fav toy because Elmo ceaselessly fucks up everything he touches. If Elmo were to sit down and act like a human being for once then maybe …. oh idk – he is not capable is he.
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Of course not. Elmo is a Muppet.
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Don’t say things like that, I don’t want to deal with Jim Henson rising from the dead with a puppet army at his disposal to punish those who disparage the Muppets.
Fair use is already a step too far, and i see no reason to cede that ground. Is fair use a consideration when i read a book or look at a painting? No. Is it a consideration if i deeply study works, so they inform my style (consciously or unconsciously) later? No.
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Perhaps those blinders you are wearing have narrowed your vision. Fair use is a topic that covers many areas and is not limited to your particular situation at the moment.
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Only if you’re a copyright maximalist. Consuming media does not fall under copyright law. Hell, consuming media isn’t illegal in any country, unless there are very specific laws regarding the acquisition and consumption of media regarding certain topics.
The case law is shaky at best, but yes. It is fair use if you use the Mona Lisa and react to it. It is fair use to make Star Trek fanfiction. It is fair use to make fanart of Game of Thrones characters.
And yes, it is also fair use to learn from a fucking painting or novel. Just like how it is MOTHERFUCKING FAIR USE TO LEARN MATH, ENGLISH, AND SCIENCE FROM A FUCKING TEXTBOOK.
If you say otherwise, then you are worse than even the Romans, Greeks and even the kings and queens of the Middle Ages. Who still thought that some form of education was still useful for their subjects.
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“It is fair use if you use the Mona Lisa and react to it.”
No it’s not. The Mona Lisa was painted from 1503 to 1506, so is therefore in the Public Domain. Since anything in the Public Domain is out of copyright by definition, there is no consideration of fair use necessary because that only applies to works still under copyright.
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And if the Mona Lisa was under copyright, fair use would still apply.
Point being, education IS fair use. As well as the least creative of ways to make content.
Shame there’s people who don’t want to get that.
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Eh… I wouldn’t count on that. Copyright fanatics have proven that they are entirely willing to push for works to be removed from the public domain.
sadly this all make perfect sense if you consider it from a particular perspective. I think he’s a believer in Roko’s Basilisk he thinks it will all be irrelevant because his “digital god” will kill everyone who didn’t actively help bring about it’s existence
Copyright law being “obsoleted” means writing is “obsoleted” and tiktok isn’t.
You get what you pay for.
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This is what copyrighists actually believe.
'You did WHAT?!'
It’s crazy that he thinks a digital omnissiah(who may or may not have a few biological apostles) will pop up to render all the AI-related lawsuit moot but it’s really bonkers that he doesn’t realize said digital deity is probably not going to be a big fan of him.
AGI will be interesting
AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) will be an interesting time. From a scientific standpoint, it will an astounding time to be alive, as our knowledge of science should expand exponentially.
Applying AGI to other matters that are subjective, such as court cases will be interesting too. Not just on how to train an AGI (plenty of cases have had objectively terrible rulings), but then how AGI’s rulings on new cases will be evaluated based on each evaluator’s political and religious leanings.
Re: our knowledge of science should expand exponentially.
Current ai is great at producing stuff similar to other stuff. It doesn’t create from scratch.
Your “does science better than a human” ai is just sky pie. You think computers are magic. They are not.
Re: Re:
As are many inventions before they exist.
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Thanks for confirming that. Now if we can just get the content creators to shut the fuck up about how they’re being replaced by machines that do their job better, since we’ve confirmed that that’s not the case.
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“as our knowledge of science should expand exponentially.”
This will happen in a time when a significant number of people think the earth is flat and a significant number of our politicians are actively destroying the education system …lol.
AI, by definition, does not think outside the box, aka its training. Humans on the other hand, do.
Re: Re:
What definition of “AI” are you using?
Digital god? Tech bros have foisted their false idols on us for decades now. Why should their worthless AI creation be any different? I’d be more than happy to play the role of Lucifer.
Maybe he’s going to rename Grok to Digital God and it’s going to “save everyone”. He’s got the massive ego for it.
Is musk on something in this interview? He’s deranged!
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Apartheid.
He’s got a terminal case of apartheid.
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Combined with meth and ketamine, going by all the evidence he produces.
So I'm down with seeing how this pans out...
In my experience, prophets of some kind of deity’s apocalyptic arrival and the true believers in their cult have this tendency when the predictions do not come to pass of attempting to… uhm… “expedite” the process en masse on a more personal level.
This could solve a lot of the problems TD has been struggling for the last year to keep up with all the newest developments in.
“Elon Says Copyright/AI Lawsuits Don’t Matter Because ‘Digital God’ Will Arrive Before They’re Decided”
Interesting. Does this ‘Digital God’ have a church and a Bible, Musk?
He is the false prophet
Elon Musk is the false prophet
So Elon Musk is a mechtheist. Love it.
Elon Musk: "Digital God will arrive in three years"
Arrested development and billionaire hubris is a bad combination. I fear for humanity if the Digital God has the same flaws as the humans who created it.
AI = An Idiot
AI is a theocracy pushed by fascists dictating what the future should be. confirmed.
They could also call it Digital Satan, though, cause it appears attractive but will deceive you in every way.
But same thing, Digital God, isn’t it?
It’s all a promise of a utopia, as well, but a utopia for the rich where the poor are useless and somehow “magically” pay themselves. Cause for sure the rich isn’t going to pay them cause they make AI to get even richer.
Absolute lolcows.