Reid Hoffman thinks Elon Musk and others are wrong in calling for a pause in development of artificial intelligence chatbots.
The longtime Silicon Valley tech execs have known each other and been friends since Musk CEO of PayPal and Hoffman was its chief operating officer more than 20 years ago. More recently Musk was one of the co-founders of OpenAI LLC, which sparked a boom in chat AI last year with its ChatGPT app and where Hoffman is a former board member.
Musk left OpenAI in 2018 over disagreements with CEO Sam Altman and others at the San Francisco company, reportedly because the Tesla founder wanted more control of it. Musk, in a letter last week signed by over 1,000 others, called for a pause in advanced artificial intelligence development, citing potential risks to society and humanity.
Hoffman, appearing on CNBC's "Squawkbox," said he believes it is important to guard against the potential downsides of chatbot AI but he thinks some of the letter signers are motivated by self-interest. He called the letter a "broadly mistaken effort" that could actually make the technology less safe.
"I think some of it's a little bit less well intentioned, like 'Everyone else slow down, so I can speed up,'' Hoffman told CNBC.
Hoffman isn't the only tech leader critical of the Musk position. Microsoft Corp. founder Bill Gates told Reuters on Monday that he didn't understand how development of chat AI could be paused now why that should happen.
"I don’t think asking one particular group to pause solves the challenges," Gates told Reuters.
Hoffman said in his CNBC appearance that while Musk has done great things in some areas of technology, he is mistaken about chat AI.
"Elon tends to have a 'I must build it with my own hands'" approach, Hoffman told CNBC. "You look at what amazing stuff he's done with SpaceX and Tesla, and it has the kind of 'It's only great if I do it.'"
