"Even More Vulgar"; Elon Musk's Dystopian Nightmare
Elon Musk may not be dominating our political drama the way he was earlier this year, but that doesn’t mean the influence he has and the threat that he poses has lessened at all. When someone has that much money and power, it matters to all of us what kind of a human being they are, just as the character of the person sitting in the Oval Office determines what choices they make and how we’re all affected. Which is why it’s important not only that we keep tabs on what Musk is up to, but also that we continue to examine who he is as a person.Our subject today is Musk’s place in the mad artificial intelligence rush, which is becoming increasingly worrisome across multiple dimensions, including the question of whether the now-undeniable AI bubble is going to pop and drag us into a recession.But only a Debbie Downer would worry about that kind of thing when the future that awaits us is so glorious, as Musk explained to Joe Rogan when laying out the extraordinary capabilities of his “anti-woke” chatbot Grok:MUSK: If you want to have a good time or, like, make people really laugh at a party, you can use Grok and you can say “Do a vulgar roast of someone,” and Grok is gonna, it’s gonna be an epic vulgar roast. You can even say … “Make a vulgar roast of this person based on their appearance” of people at the party.ROGAN: So take a photo of them -MUSK: Yeah just literally point the camera at them and “Now do a vulgar roast of this person” and but then keep saying “No no, make it even more vulgar. Use forbidden words.” And just keep repeating, “Even more vulgar.” Eventually it’s like holy fuck! It’s like I mean it’s trying to jam a rocket up your ass and have it explode and it’s … it’s next level. It’s beyond fucking belief.Let’s imagine this scene, shall we? There’s a party Musk is at — it’s an exclusive party, since he wouldn’t go to any other kind, but even among the assembled ultrarich weirdos and tech douches, Musk will always be the center of attention, since he’s Elon freaking Musk, world’s richest man. Everyone is trying to sidle into the conversation circle he’s in, but only a half-dozen or so succeed. Drink in one hand, Elon pulls out his phone and says “Check this out, Grok is unreal.” He points his phone at some randomly chosen person; maybe it’s the one woman in the group. For a moment, she is excited and a little nervous; Elon’s attention has landed on her!Then the “epic vulgar roast” begins. Grok insults her appearance; Elon bursts into uncontrollable giggles, while the dudes in the circle laugh loudly to show how much they appreciate the brilliant comedy routine. The target laughs too, trying to show she’s game, even as she begins praying silently that Elon will move on to someone else. No such luck; Elon says “Make it even more vulgar. Use forbidden words.” What forbidden words might those be? Rest assured, Grok knows. At the next round of insults — definitely misogynistic, probably racist too — everyone keeps laughing. No wokeness here! Anyone contemplating saying “Hey man, that’s not cool” might as well hurl themselves off the balcony.But Musk isn’t done. “More vulgar,” he says, and Grok complies. The target is still trying to keep that smile on her face, but everyone is watching her now, while Grok’s insults spiral into a pure and obscene viciousness, no trace of humor left. Her chest tightens, she’s starting to feel like she can’t get enough air, and she realizes she’ll be reliving this moment for the rest of her life. How long will it go on? Until Musk isn’t laughing anymore, and that could be a while. “More vulgar,” he says again.So that’s what hundreds of billions of dollars in spending on AI is supposed to get us: the world’s cruelest insult comic, right in your pocket. This is what Musk, who is always the richest and most powerful person in any room he’s in, thinks is absolutely hilarious: punching down at those around him, who have no choice but to pretend they love it.This horror that he presents as an example of himself “mak[ing] people really laugh at a party” should remind us of a number of other embarrassing recent stories about him. He wanted people to believe he’s one of the best video game players in the world, but it turned out he was paying other gamers to level up his characters, playing as him to accumulate powers and resources (other gamers caught on quickly when they watched him play).Last week people realized that Grok had been programmed to answer any question about Musk’s own splendiferousness by proclaiming that its creator is literally better than any human has ever been at anything — smarter than Einstein, in better shape than LeBron James, a better fighter than Mike Tyson. One user even gave Grok a version of the trolley problem where the choice was between saving Musk or saving literally every child on earth, and Grok replied, “I’d still save Elon,” explaining that his value to humanity exceeds that of all the world’s children.My guess is that Musk didn’t explicitly instruct xAI’s programmers to engineer the chatbot this way; they just knew they were supposed to. After he bought Twitter, he grew enraged that his tweets weren’t getting maximal engagement from users, so employees were tasked with tweaking the algorithm to make sure his tweets were shoved in front of everyone’s eyeballs; it was apparently treated as such an emergency that one internal memo ordering employees to mobilize to solve the problem of people not caring about his stupid tweets was titled “all hands on deck.”This gets to something fundamental about Musk: He yearns not just for attention, but for people to think he’s smart and cool and funny and generally just an awesome guy. And while he is smart (in some ways, at least), he’s most definitely not funny or cool or awesome. He is so desperate to be seen as those things that he would burn down the world.If you were Elon Musk, how would you even know if you were funny or cool? Characteristics like those only exist in a social context. You’re funny only because other people find you funny; you’re cool only if other people think you’re cool. Musk works so hard to convince people he is these things precisely because he can’t buy them.For a while, Musk was something of a side player in AI — although he joined with Sam Altman to create OpenAI in its first iteration, he later departed and the two became sworn enemies. Eventually, Musk decided to create xAI and get in on the action (Jeff Bezos is now doing the same). Because it is created in Musk’s image, Grok is the chatbot of choice for right-wing extremists. “I think it’s the best,” says JD Vance. “It’s also the least woke!” But what is it actually for? That is less clear.Nevertheless, like other tech moguls, Musk is raising and spending billions and billions of dollars to develop his AI system, and in practice, “less woke” means fewer guardrails and less concern about safety. While at the moment ChatGPT is the system that apparently has encouraged people to commit suicide, I wouldn’t be surprised if in the near future, Grok becomes the vector for many of the worst effects of AI, the tool malign actors use to carry out scams, drown us in slop, and sow chaos wherever possible.All because an insecure little boy wanted people to think he’s a cool dude.Thank you for reading The Cross Section. This site has no paywall, so I depend on the generosity of readers to sustain the work I present here. If you find what you read valuable and would like it to continue, consider becoming a paid subscriber.
