Why Elon Musk Says He Will Charge Everyone a ‘Small Monthly Fee’ to Use X

Elon Musk opened up a dialogue with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by staunchly defending himself in opposition to accusations of antisemitism. “Obviously I’m against antisemitism. I’m against anti-anything that promotes hate and conflict,” Musk mentioned in a broadcast dialog with Netanyahu at Tesla’s places of work in Fremont, California, and streamed on X, the social media platform owned by Musk and previously often called Twitter.

Musk has been in an escalating row with the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish civil rights group he accuses of undermining X’s promoting income. The ADL has, along with different civil rights watchdogs, highlighted an increase in extremist content material on the platform after Musk took it over final yr and fired most of its workers. Musk earlier this month threatened to sue the ADL and has favored X posts that used a “BantheADL” hashtag. 

Netanyahu mentioned he hoped Musk would discover it “within the confines of the First Amendment to limit antisemitism and hate,” acknowledging that it is “not an easy task.”

Musk mentioned that “on any given day, there are 100 million to 200 million posts to the system,” and mentioned whereas it was exhausting to “police that in advance,” he might take steps to “deamplify. We’re not going to promote hate speech because probably that’s not what people are going to want to hear,” he mentioned.

Earlier this month Musk mentioned he was “pro-free speech” however in opposition to “antisemitism of any kind.”

Netanyahu was in Silicon Valley earlier than the United Nations General Assembly in New York later this week, in search of to persuade the world’s high tech executives that he’s not a pariah regardless of months of political unrest in Israel. The prime minister’s fame as a pro-business chief has taken a beating on account of his efforts to weaken Israel’s judiciary, which have sparked months of protests which might be supported by lots of the nation’s tech entrepreneurs.

Israeli tech employees residing within the Bay Area held an illustration Monday in opposition to the judicial reforms to coincide with Netanyahu’s go to. Several hundred demonstrators gathered on the airport and resort in California when the prime minister arrived, shouting “shame” and “democracy” as his convoy handed.

Speaking to Musk in a wide-ranging dialogue, Netanyahu mentioned Israel “was, is and always will be a robust democracy” however mentioned he would press on with a plan to vary how judges are chosen. The Israeli chief referred to as the nation’s judiciary “the most activist” on the planet, however mentioned he would search a “happy middle” on curbing its energy.

AI Disruption

The prime minister met Musk as a part of a full day of occasions centered on synthetic intelligence as he sought to showcase Israel’s AI potential. His agenda included a tour of a Tesla manufacturing unit and a experience in an autonomous car. As he departed Tel Aviv, Netanyahu instructed reporters on the tarmac he was courting the world’s richest man to spend money on Israel’s AI startups within the coming years.

Investors Stand by Israel’s Tech Startups, for Now

Ahead of the assembly, an Israeli official touring with the prime minister sought to downplay the tensions with Musk, saying the planning for the assembly started earlier than the antisemitism controversy erupted earlier this month. Netanyahu doesn’t view Musk as harboring any antisemitic views, the official mentioned.

After Netanyahu requested how Musk might stop “armies of bots” from amplifying hate speech on X, the entrepreneur mentioned the platform would transfer towards requiring a small month-to-month fee.

“This is a super tough problem,” Musk responded, saying that it is the “single most important reason” he is shifting to a month-to-month fee system. A bot prices a fraction of a penny to function, he mentioned, underneath X’s present system, which presents each free and paid tiers. Making somebody pay a number of {dollars} to make use of the service, he mentioned, makes “the effective cost of bots” very excessive, and would require bot operators to make use of a brand new fee methodology each time they needed to create a brand new one.

Later, throughout a round-table dialogue about AI, OpenAI co-founder and President Greg Brockman mentioned the startup hasn’t confronted strain to deploy its expertise rapidly a lot because it has to guard customers’ privateness.

“What the market actually pushes us against is when it comes into conflict with other values, for example, privacy,” he mentioned.

Brockman famous that when OpenAI initially launched its utility programming interfaces for its GPT fashions, it deliberate to observe and document “everything” so knowledge could be logged and might be checked out if points arose.

“People hate that,” he mentioned. “You kind of want that for everyone else, but for yourself you want privacy.”

When OpenAI launched a model of ChatGPT for companies in August, it promoted its adherence to a slew of privateness safeguards, akin to knowledge encryption and a assure that the startup will not use data from prospects to develop its expertise.

Netanyahu and Musk have been in touch since 2018, when the Israeli prime minister hosted the SpaceX founder in his Jerusalem residence, in accordance with an Israeli official, who spoke on situation of anonymity as a result of he was not licensed to debate the connection. Netanyahu and Musk have saved in contact and share views on the potential advantages – in addition to dangers – of synthetic intelligence, the official mentioned. Netanyahu spokesperson Topaz Luk mentioned the prime minister and Musk beforehand mentioned the rising expertise a number of occasions by telephone.

During Monday’s dialogue, Netanyahu expressed issues that synthetic intelligence left unchecked might result in the “disruption of democracy, the manipulation of minds, crime syndicates, AI-driven wars.” Netanyahu mentioned he’ll be drafting Israel’s AI coverage within the coming months. 

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