Billionaire Elon Musk has voiced serious concerns regarding Apple’s decision to integrate OpenAI’s technology into its operating system.
On June 10, Apple announced plans to integrate its devices with new artificial intelligence features through a partnership with OpenAI at its annual WWDC conference. These features include improvements to Siri, new capabilities in text and image generation as well as into its new apps.
However, Elon Musk, co-founder of OpenAI who later parted ways with the company, views this integration as a potential “unacceptable security violation.” Musk threatened to ban Apple devices within his companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, and his social media platform X.
In a statement made on X, Musk criticized: “If Apple integrates OpenAI at the OS level, then Apple devices will be banned at my companies. Visitors will have to check their Apple devices at the door, where they will be stored in a Faraday cage.”
The tech giant’s reaction originates from his concerns about the privacy and security implications of AI.
Recently, Elon Musk sued OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman accusing them of straying from its founding mission of developing AI for the betterment of humanity, focusing instead on profit-making.
He has been vocal about his belief that AI should be developed and utilized with the utmost regard for privacy and ethical standards.
He expressed skepticism about Apple’s ability to ensure user security in his concerns, stating, “It’s patently absurd that Apple isn’t smart enough to make their own AI, yet is somehow capable of ensuring that OpenAI will protect your security & privacy!”
The partnership announced by Apple aims to integrate OpenAI’s ChatGPT, into various aspects of the Apple ecosystem. This integration is intended to enhance the user experience by allowing Siri to hand off complex queries to ChatGPT and provide tools for content creation and data analysis.
Elon also said that most of the users agree to the read terms and conditions without reading them and he is right about it.
OpenAI has assured that privacy is a priority, with measures in place such as not storing requests and obscuring users’ IP addresses. Apple has echoed this commitment, emphasizing that the new AI features are built with privacy at their core, combining on-device processing and cloud computing to maintain security.
Also, this isn’t the first time Musk is concerned about the clashes with Apple. In 2022, he publicly criticized Apple and CEO Tim Cook over the fees Apple charges on its App Store. Although Musk and Cook later met to discuss these issues, tensions seem to have resurfaced with this latest AI integration.