A leading artificial intelligence researcher has publicly called out Elon Musk for his “blatantly false” artificial intelligence predictions, as the clash between the two continues after a week of back-and-forth.
In one Sunday In a post on Musk-owned X, Meta's chief scientist Yann LeCun said he disagreed with Elon Musk's treatment of scientists and approach to AI noise.
“I mean, expressing an ambitious vision for the future is great,” LeCun wrote. “But telling the public untrue false predictions (“AGI next year”, “1 million robotaxis by 2020”, “AGI will kill us all, let's stop”,…) is too counterproductive (also illegal in some cases).”
My opinion on @elonmusk
I love his cars (I have a 2015 S and a 2023 S), his rockets, his solar power systems, and his satellite communication system.
I also like his positions on open source and patents.But I strongly disagree with him on a number of issues.
I don't agree with…
— Yann LeCun (@ylecun) June 2, 2024
Musk has made these predictions. In April, he said that AGI, or artificial general intelligence smarter than the most intelligent human, would arrive “maybe next year, within two years.”
He too promised 1 million robotaxis by 2020 in 2019 CALL with investors and said at an AI security summit in November that “there is some chance, above zero, that AI will kill us all.”
Yann LeCun, Chief AI Scientist at Meta. Photo: Benjamin Girette/Bloomberg via Getty Images
LeCun also disagreed with the way Musk treats his scientists, noting that research needs publications and openness to advance.
“Secrecy impedes progress and discourages talent from joining the effort,” LeCun wrote.
Musk's startup, xAI, raised 6 billion last week and stated that the money would go towards bringing its first products to market. The artificial intelligence startup has only one public-facing product so far: an AI chatbot called Grok which is only available for premium X users.
xAI made AI model after Grok publicly available in March.
Musk did not directly respond to LeCun on Sunday, but posted a meme on the same day parodying LeCun's posts.
I wish Yan Lecan would stop sending me this sh$t? pic.twitter.com/5X6aecfDsD
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 2, 2024
LeCun and Musk's feud began last week when LeCun he answered in a job posting for xAI and criticized Musk's leadership.
Musk then ridiculed LeCun's research background, telling him to “try harder” as LeCun said he published over 80 technical papers since January 2022.
LeCun did not respond to Entrepreneur's request for comment.
Connected: 'We can all agree Elon isn't serious': Mark Zuckerberg slams Elon Musk as feud continues