Though Elon Musk advocated for an industry-wide pause on AI training less than a month ago, signing an open letter to AI industry giants out of fears of what ill-considered breakthroughs could mean in the long run. on AI development, he seems to have changed his tune, kicking off the Twitter AI project.
According to Business Insider(opens in a new tab), Musk purchased around 10 GPUs and recruited AI talent from DeepMind for the project.
Sources familiar with the matter noted that the AI development project is still in the early stages, but the considerable number of GPU purchases shows just how dedicated Musk is to the cause. The exact purpose of the AI project remains unclear: will it compete with ChatGPT and Google Bard as a useful chatbot, or perhaps will it be used to improve the Twitter user experience (much needed, though I'm not sure AI is the answer)?
Where have all the GPUs gone?
Despite Twitter's ongoing and very public financial woes, the GPUs would cost tens of millions of dollars, which could further demonstrate that Musk views the AI project as a priority despite the shaky financial situation the company is currently facing. company. The GPUs are expected to be deployed in Twitter's two remaining data centers.
In addition to the new hardware, Twitter is hiring additional engineers to manage the project. Earlier this year, the company recruited engineers from Deep Mind, an AI research group and a subsidiary of Alphabet, and Musk openly sought talent in the AI industry to compete with OpenAI.
Musk previously spoke about his first vision for the ChatGPT competitor, pitching it as an upgraded "anti-wake" version that would "kill" backup protocols and potentially allow malicious users to spew hate speech and fascist and racist propaganda. If that's anything to go by, we look forward to hearing more from the ill-tempered tech giant and seeing where AI can take the project.
If Musk plans to take the AI project much more seriously than initially thought, we could see a GPU shortage emerge, which would be bad news for gamers. We saw a similar shortage a few years ago when crypto miners were sweeping GPUs and it was almost impossible to find a GPU, especially at a reasonable price, and the AI arms race could see more GPUs being bought in bulk, as well as GPUs especially designed to absorb components, which could lead to another shortage of consumer graphics cards. Excellent.