Elon Musk Doesn’t Understand AI
No, really, he doesn’t.
Musk’s facade is crumbling before us. Just a few years ago, he was the golden boy of capitalism, a visionary engineer, a revolutionary business leader and a saviour of the environment. He had built the perfect mythology around him and was reaping the rewards. But all of that has now gone. The public’s perception of Musk has shifted to that of an anti-democratic, free-speech hypocrite, misinformation-spouting, racist, misogynistic, union-busting, bullshit-spewing, midlife crisis-riddled, egotistical, petty, damagingly profiteering, idiotic businessman that only got to where he is through aggressive takeovers and manipulation. But who also, crucially, doesn’t seem to understand the technology his companies are based on at all. This fall from grace is worth studying, but is far beyond the scope of this article. Instead, I want to focus on Musk’s approach to one specific technology, AI, as it epitomises Musk’s complete lack of understanding and awareness. You see, from Tesla’s FSD to X’s new Grok AI image generator, Musk seems to not only fail to understand what AI actually is but also fail to recognise its glaring limitations.
Let’s start with said Grok AI image generator.
Grok, the AI text generator, is already in quite a bit of trouble. It has no limits on its output, making it prime for spewing…
