Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, Tesla and, by October 2022, Twitter, recently made headlines for spearheading a letter calling for a halt to the development of artificial intelligence (AI) due to societal concerns. Despite his efforts, the tech tycoon appears to be pushing ahead with his plans to develop AI infrastructure.
Musk appears to be moving ahead with Twitter's plans for an artificial intelligence project, according to a report from Business Insider. The Twitter CEO recently purchased nearly 10,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) for use in the platform, according to two anonymous sources familiar with the company. Typically, GPUs are used for large-scale AI models because the technique requires a lot of computing power. It follows a March 18 tweet in which Musk said the company would use artificial intelligence to "detect and highlight manipulation of public opinion" on Twitter.
Anonymous sources reportedly believe the project is in its early stages, but the purchase of such a number of GPUs shows that Musk is "committed" to the project. The project uses large language models, one of the sources said. However, the source also said that the exact role of the generative AI in Twitter is unclear.
Additionally, Twitter has recently acquired new talent with extensive backgrounds in AI. In March, engineers Igor Babuschkin and Manuel Kroiss joined Musk's team after working with DeepMind, the artificial intelligence research subsidiary of Google's parent company Alphabet.
The developments come just weeks after Musk signed an open letter with thousands of other researchers in the tech space, temporarily halting the development of artificial intelligence because of the risks to humanity. Musk also warned regulators at an event with the National Governors Association in 2017 that AI research needed to be regulated before it was "too late."
