Even as a court filing revealed that Twitter Inc.’s name had been changed to X Corp., the Wall Street Journal reported that Twitter and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has formed a new artificial intelligence company, X.AI Corp. This seems to confirm speculations that Musk aims to make Twitter into a new “everything app” enabling activity from payments to shopping to networking. Considering Musk’s Neuralink brain microchip projects, he might even aim eventually to connect his “everything app” and AI with chips embedded in people’s brains.
The question is, with all Musk’s China ties, is Musk receiving any inspiration for the “everything app” from China’s social credit system?
X will be the everything app
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 16, 2022
WSJ reported on April 14:
Elon Musk has created a new artificial intelligence company called X.AI Corp. that is incorporated in Nevada, according to a state filing.
Mr. Musk is the only listed director of the company, and Jared Birchall, the director of Mr. Musk’s family office, is its secretary, according to the filing made last month…The business invokes the name of what Mr. Musk has described as his effort to create an everything app called X. Twitter, also owned by Mr. Musk recently changed its name to X Corp. The social-media company was also incorporated in Nevada instead of its previous domicile in Delaware, according to a legal filing last week. X Corp. has a parent company named X Holdings Corp.
There’s another aspect that not many are discussing. With Musk’s extensive investments in China through his Tesla China branch and his planned Megapack factory, he might be getting inspiration from China for his “everything app,” as I said above.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has an authoritarian social credit system where one’s social media, shopping, job, event (or protest) attendance, and medical status (among other aspects) are all linked. They can impact a person’s digital ID, which is required to do or buy anything. Recently, as anti-regime protests convulsed China, one of the CCP’s aggressive tactics against protestors was simply turning their digital IDs or QR codes red, meaning targeted people couldn’t do or buy anything or go anywhere. With Musk actually increasing investment and production in China, despite the CCP’s ongoing genocide, hostility to the United States, and political and religious persecution, concern over Chinese influence on his inspiration for the “everything app” isn’t unreasonable.
And while Musk might intend his app to be a private platform that increases convenience and not an authoritarian digital ID, his plan is potentially dangerous. It could be particularly hazardous if the app gets co-opted by the government, as Twitter previously was (see the Twitter Files).
Related: Chinese Communist Party Mandates AI Chatbots ‘Reflect Core Values of Socialism’
All major businesses in China are surveilled by and answerable to the CCP, which practices “civil-military fusion” — where everything in the economic and tech spheres is accessible to the Chinese military. So Musk is working with and answerable to the CCP already because of Tesla China. China is looking to make AI reflect the CCP’s “core values of socialism.” How can we be sure Musk’s various global companies will stay separate from all Chinese influence?
In fact, Musk wrote an article last August for China Cyberspace, “a monthly magazine run by the Cyberspace Administration of China (CAC), the central agency for internet control and regulation,” according to a translation of the article on Beijing Channel and The Post Millennial. In the article, Musk tried to encourage CCP interest in his microchip, artificial intelligence, and space travel projects. If Musk plans CCP support for and Chinese investment in his AI, it’s reasonable to think China could well be involved with X.AI — and thus, eventually, the X “everything app.” That is a truly alarming prospect.
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