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Musk’s controversial tweets spark global debates

Musk’s controversial tweets spark global debates

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Controversial Tweets

Elon Musk’s online presence has evolved, with his promotion of Tesla now intertwined with culture war rhetoric and his political agitation becoming increasingly extreme. Musk recently interacted with far-right Canadian internet personality Lauren Southern, even financially supporting her through Twitter’s subscription feature. A new study claims that AI poses no existential threat to humanity.

While large language models show proficiency in language and appear to follow instructions, they cannot master new skills without explicit instruction, making them controllable and predictable. The study explains that purported emergent abilities in AI are not truly emergent but result from a combination of in-context learning, model memory, and linguistic knowledge. Nvidia has been accused of ‘unjust enrichment’ in a federal lawsuit alleging that it scraped YouTube to train its AI systems.

The suit claims Nvidia used software on commercial servers to evade YouTube’s detection and downloaded ‘approximately 80 years’ worth of video content per day’ to train its Cosmos AI software. This lawsuit brings to light the tension between technological advancement and intellectual property rights in the AI industry. Elon Musk showed himself to be unbothered by facts during his appearance at the Atreju festival in Rome.

Musk’s influence on global discourse

Musk made several inaccurate statements, including claiming the world’s population will shrink to “one-10th of its current size” within three generations and that farming and cows do no great harm to the environment. With more than 190 million followers on X, Musk has a vast influence, raising concerns about the safety of truth in his hands.

Media ownership matters significantly, as pointed out by Westminster’s communications committee in its report on the future of investigative journalism. The committee noted that an owner “can have a significant impact on the journalistic culture of a news organization.” Ireland’s financial regulatory regime requires owners and managers of charitable trusts and financial services companies to satisfy a fit-and-proper-person test, but no equivalent standard exists for news media ownership. Elon Musk’s absolutist version of free speech has positioned him and his X social-media platform into the spotlight of global governments.

In the United Kingdom, officials are considering tougher regulations for sites like X following a surge of online disinformation that prompted riots. Similarly, in India and Brazil, X has faced conflicts with the government over the spread of fake news and hate speech. Musk’s commitment to “free speech” has cost X advertising revenue and thrust him into political skirmishes globally.

Critics argue that Musk’s defense facilitates the spread of hate speech and falsehoods. The balance between maintaining free speech and preventing harmful content remains a contentious and evolving issue as global scrutiny on X intensifies.

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About Our Journalist

April Isaacs

April Isaacs is a long-term, self-proclaimed nerd. She loves all things tech and computers and still has her first Dreamcast system. It is lovingly named Joni, after Joni Mitchell.
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