The push for Elon Musk to lead American AI policy is already starting

Efforts to power President-elect Donald Trump’s policies via Elon Musk are already beginning. On Friday, nonprofit AI advocacy radical Americans for Responsible Innovation (ARI) launched a nationalist petition asking Trump to marque Musk his peculiar advisor connected AI, saying helium is well-positioned to support the US pb connected the exertion portion ensuring it’s rolled retired safely.

“No 1 is amended equipped to assistance the Trump Administration marque America pb connected AI than Elon Musk,” reads the petition circulated by ARI, which is led by erstwhile Democratic congressman Brad Carson and says it doesn’t instrumentality firm funding.

Musk has been a starring professional of OpenAI, a institution helium co-founded but much precocious has distanced himself from and made into an opponent. Shortly aft the merchandise of ChatGPT, helium signed onto a missive calling for a moratorium connected the improvement of much precocious generative AI models successful bid to instrumentality safeguards. Critics accidental his stances are mostly self-interested, however, since helium besides runs his ain AI company, xAI.

The ARI petition says it’s imaginable to woody with Musk’s conflicts of interest, arguing that with “proper mechanisms” to bash so, “Musk would beryllium an invaluable plus for helping the Trump medication navigate the improvement of this transformational technology.” ARI is aiming to get 10,000 signatures connected the petition.

“Musk could look arsenic a champion for AI information successful the administration,” ARI argumentation expert David Robusto wrote in a caller blog post. Robusto pointed to Musk’s co-founding of OpenAI, his telephone for a moratorium connected AI development, and enactment of California’s vetoed AI information measure SB 1047 arsenic reasons to judge his committedness to information is deep-rooted. Robusto concedes that Musk hasn’t said overmuch astir what kinds of authorities policies should really beryllium implemented — too the instauration of a dedicated AI information bureau — but says his “lack of specificity suggests his reasoning connected the taxable is evolving and tin inactive beryllium shaped by nationalist statement implicit the issue.”

Musk has antecedently claimed he’ll articulation the Trump medication successful a relation helium created from full cloth: the caput of a caller Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), whose relation would beryllium to gut the full US regulatory system. But Robusto hopes helium could beforehand AI information adjacent successful that capableness — if lone by hitting the departments that negociate it little hard. Robusto says Musk whitethorn spare agencies cardinal to AI information argumentation similar the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) from cuts to national spending. And if Musk imposes wide layoffs crossed the authorities to prevention costs, the authorities whitethorn thin much connected AI tools to marque up the workload.

“[W]ith due guardrails successful place, his unsocial operation of method expertise and information advocacy could beryllium a invaluable plus successful processing liable AI governance,” Robusto writes.