Inside Elon Musk’s struggle for the future of AI

We just got a never-before-seen look at how—and why—Elon Musk decided to go all-in on artificial intelligence. This comes from an article by Walter Isaacson in Time, and is adapted from his upcoming book Elon Musk, which publishes today! Issacson’s name may ring a bell, as he’s also the author of the Steve Jobs biography.) In the article, Issacson gives new details on the actions Elon Musk has taken to get highly involved in the future of AI. It turns out that Musk has become increasingly worried about the development of advanced AI—and considers it probable that we develop superintelligent AI that poses an existential risk to humanity if not properly shepherded into existence.

Much of his discontent seems to have come from rocky relationships with Google over its acquisition of DeepMind and displeasure that OpenAI, which he co-founded, pivoted away from being a non-profit lab releasing AI advancements for everyone to use and build upon. As Isaacson details, Musk has spent years developing dedicated AI capabilities across his companies, including Neuralink, Tesla, and SpaceX. He’s also actively considering how to use Twitter’s data to fuel AI systems.

Now, he’s founded an overarching AI company called xAI to tie together all these AI efforts—and tapped a former AI expert at DeepMind, Igor Babuschkin, to join the company. His goal? To ensure AI develops in a way that benefits humanity and guarantees that superintelligent AI doesn’t cause existential risks to the species at large. Musk has made some bold public statements before; it will be interesting to see what develops. 

We tested out Google Duet AI

Google recently released Duet AI for Google Workspace, an AI copilot across popular Google apps like Docs, Sheets, Slides, Gmail, and Meet—and Marketing AI Institute took a deep dive into its capabilities. Over the last week, we’ve spent hours kicking the tires of different Duet AI capabilities across the main apps…and we definitely have some thoughts on how marketers and business leaders can take advantage of these new AI capabilities.

Microsoft offers legal protection for AI copyright infringement challenges

Microsoft just announced Copilot Copyright Commitment, a policy that provides legal protection for customers sued for copyright infringement when using Microsoft's AI systems like GitHub Copilot and Bing Chat. 

This comes as the explosion of generative AI tools has raised concerns about reproducing copyrighted material without attribution, and Microsoft aims to give customers confidence in deploying AI without worrying about copyright issues by covering any legal damages. The policy covers Microsoft AI products that use built-in guardrails, as the company faces ongoing litigation over Copilot's alleged copyright violations from scraping code. 

"As customers ask whether they can use Microsoft’s Copilot services and the output they generate without worrying about copyright claims, we are providing a straightforward answer: yes, you can, and if you are challenged on copyright grounds, we will assume responsibility for the potential legal risks involved," writes Microsoft. A big statement. What does that mean for businesses? 

Enjoy the episode…and stick around for the rapid-fire topics, including announcements at INBOUND, Time’s Top 100 People in AI, and much more.