Elon Musk Goes to War with Google: A Battle for the Future of Artificial Intelligence

Elon Musk has found a new target for his critiques: Google. The magnate is becoming increasingly vocal against the tech giant, particularly following the launch of Gemini, Google’s AI generator, which has sparked considerable controversy.

Since Gemini’s introduction, Musk has shared and replied to over 100 posts about the company on the platform X, predominantly expressing critical views. His main accusations center on Google’s image generator being “too politically correct”, producing historically inaccurate images and providing odd responses to some queries.

Last week, Google had to suspend Gemini’s image generation feature after a wave of backlash accusing it of being overly “woke”. Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, stated that the company hopes to have the image generator back online in “a couple of weeks”, admitting that some features were applied “too bluntly”.

Musk, a known critic of “woke” policies, has accused Google of implementing “insanely racist and anti-civilizational programming” with its AI. His critique was not limited to Gemini but extended to other aspects of Google’s operations, including the company’s flagship search engine and its email service, Gmail, hinting at the arrival of a competing product called “XMail”.

Musk’s criticisms went beyond Google’s products, including personal attacks against some employees. He highlighted how, according to some data, Big Tech companies, particularly Google, tend to donate more to Democrats than to Republicans, suggesting the existence of a “pattern”. Additionally, he targeted Jack Krawczyk, the product lead for Gemini, accusing him of contributing to Google’s AI’s alleged racist and sexist tendencies.

This confrontation goes beyond Musk’s personal reputation. After expressing similar concerns about OpenAI’s ChatGPT, he founded his own AI company, launching Grok, a chatbot aiming to be funnier and less “politically correct” than its competitors. Musk is leveraging the Gemini controversy to highlight the advantages of an AI like Grok, sharing memes that praise xAI’s efforts as “maximum truth-seeking” in contrast to rivals.

Musk promises rapid improvements for Grok, with the release of version 1.5 scheduled in two weeks, emphasizing the importance of a “rigorous pursuit of truth, without regard for criticism”.

In a broader context, on February 28, Axel Springer, the parent company of Business Insider, joined 31 other media groups in filing a $2.3 billion lawsuit against Google in a Dutch court for losses suffered due to the company’s advertising practices.

This battle between Elon Musk and Google is not just a dispute between titanic personalities and tech companies but signals a broader reflection on the future of artificial intelligence, its impact on society, and the ethical implications of emerging technologies.