It’s no secret that Apple has fallen behind in the AI race. To resolve this, Apple announced on Monday that they will use ChatGPT to boost their Siri voice assistant and operating systems capabilities. This will be offered to iPhone and Mac users as a new personalised AI system called “Apple Intelligence” that will offer writing assistance, advanced voice assistance and even better route planning. Elon Musk immediately denounced the move, stating, “If Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level, then Apple devices will be banned at my companies. That is an unacceptable security violation.” Musk even claimed, “Apple has no clue what’s actually going on once they hand your data over to OpenAI.” If you have been paying attention to Musk and Tesla, this is an insanely hypocritical stance! But Musk has motivation for such a phoney position.
Now, let’s address the elephant in the room. Musk has a point. OpenAI and Apple have assured they have privacy protections, stating that “Requests are not stored by OpenAI, and users’ IP addresses are obscured.” However, OpenAI has openly flaunted copyright and privacy rules to gather enough data to train their AIs and recently disbanded their AI safety team. I, personally, do not trust OpenAI, and I believe the AI industry needs way better regulation before I do. I use Apple products, and I hope there will be a way to turn off the ChatGPT-linked features, as I do not trust that my data won’t be used in ways I do not consent to. You are more than welcome to have your own opinion here, but at the very least, I can relate to Musk’s worries.
But Tesla is no less guilty of this. It is also developing AI and has handled customer data extremely questionably!
Last year, A Reuters investigation found that between 2019 and 2022, Tesla employees shared sensitive videos and images recorded by Tesla vehicles. These videos and images are recorded by Tesla vehicles and sent back to Tesla to train their self-driving AI. Several separate times, employees have leaked similar sensitive videos to the public. Tesla has also failed to report and repair “massive” data breaches, again mostly of highly sensitive video and images recorded by Tesla vehicles. All of this is no surprise, as Musk runs Tesla incredibly lean, so the team responsible for managing data handling and privacy is simply inadequate for the job.
So, as much as I don’t trust OpenAI with my data, I equally don’t trust Tesla!
But it isn’t just me. China has banned Tesla vehicles from being parked at government compounds, specifically because the cameras on the cars pose a security risk. Last month, Tesla only sold one car in Korea due to many factors, but one of the major ones is the fear of security issues over Tesla’s cameras and data handling. I, personally, know several UK Tesla owners who work for the UK government or businesses contracted by the UK government who have been instructed to not drive or park their Tesla on government grounds due to security concerns. I even know of private engineering firms that don’t allow Teslas on their ground, as they see them as a serious security risk.
So, governments and private corporations treat Tesla vehicles the same way Musk is threatening to treat Apple products if they adopt OpenAI technology. This is a textbook example of hypocrisy! But why? Surely, making statements like this will draw attention to Tesla’s questionable attitude toward data privacy.
Well, I think Musk is out to smear OpenAI. You see, he was one of the founders of OpenAI. However, in 2017, Musk wanted to take OpenAI from a non-profit to a for-profit structure. But he wanted to do this either by creating a separate for-profit entity that would use OpenAI technology and wanted himself to have the majority equity and board control of the entity, or by merging OpenAI with Tesla. Musk threatened to leave and pull his funding if they didn’t agree to either option. The rest of the OpenAI team saw this for what it was: a toxic takeover, and happily showed Musk the door. Needless to say, Musk is incredibly annoyed that OpenAI didn’t just roll over and accept his egotistical, self-centred, greedy and damaging demands. What’s more, over the years, Musk’s pettiness has been on full display, from calling rescue divers paedophiles, banning journalists from Twitter (X)who are critical of him, and even banning external links to new sites critical of him from Twitter (X). With this context, his hypocritical stance just appears as a profoundly petty, inconsistent and un-self-aware attempt to damage a company that once told him to f**k off.
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Sources: BBC, The Independent, Reuters, Reuters, Fortune, Will Lockett