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 Far-right billionaire Elon Musk is trying to amass even more power in the tech space, and his interview on Fox reveals just how dangerous he could be if successful.


  • Elon Musk believes AI could 'take over' and start making decisions
  • Elon Musk: I want a 'maximum truth-seeking AI'

Generally, I’m far less amused by Elon Musk’s tech ramblings — be they online or in-person — than his followers, who seemingly hang on his every word. 

So Fox News’ promotion of a two-part interview between Musk and its white nationalist TV host Tucker Carlson didn’t excite me. So far, things have gone as expected: The first part of the interview that aired Monday largely featured Musk rambling as a seemingly confused Carlson nods along. 

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But Musk, who’s portrayed as a visionary by right-wingers, and even some Silicon Valley technophiles, proved his ignorance regarding tech in ample measure. 

I worry that the cult of personality around Musk covers up some dangerous flaws in his logic when it comes to technology and society. And it seems to cover up some of his potentially nefarious motives, too.

But it seems clear to me that Twitter’s majority owner is on a public relations push designed to portray himself as a trustworthy voice on tech and a faithful steward of the platform users’ data. And this push is occurring as news reports highlight the harm he can inflict in an increasingly technologized world. 

So let’s discuss. 

The government can read your Twitter DMs, Musk says 

“The degree to which government agencies effectively had full access to everything that was going on on Twitter blew my mind,” Musk said in the interview. He replied “Yes” when asked whether the government had access to people’s private messages. 

The clip has been shared in right-wing social media circles to stoke fears of government encroachment. 

And Musk’s claim might sound scary if not for the fact that 1) He seems to have provided no evidence to support it and 2) We already know that government officials — including local law enforcement officials — can acquire subpoenas allowing them to read people’s private social media messages.

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But the fear-mongering is revealing. 

Since acquiring Twitter, Musk has pushed conspiracy theories about Twitter’s previous leadership, including unproven allegations that the federal government — under the Trump administration, no less — pressured Twitter officials to suppress negative stories about Joe Biden in order to help Biden win the 2020 presidential election. 

Musk isn't just guilty of falsity, but of deflection, as well. 

Musk and his allies have yet to tell us why we should be concerned about the government having access to users’ private messages and data but shouldn’t be concerned that he has the exact same ability

And as we’ve discussed previously, there’s plenty of reason to worry about that. Musk has silenced voices critical of him on Twitter, aided foreign governments in suppressing dissenters’ speech online, falsely labeled media outlets as state-affiliated and openly associated with brutal foreign regimes. 

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In other words, he’s not the kind of person you'd want to have access to your personal information. But all his talk about supposedly spooky government influence conveniently ignores this. 

Last year, I even cautioned about Musk’s ownership of Tesla, a company also known to vacuum up huge amounts of users’ personal data. The point here was to suggest that we could look at Tesla’s management of drivers’ data as a potential indicator of how Musk, who's the CEO of the car company, would likely behave as Twitter owner. 

So it’s noteworthy that several Tesla employees recently came forward to Reuters alleging that fellow employees used a private messaging system to occasionally share and mock “highly invasive videos and images recorded by customers’ car cameras.” 

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If true, that seems like a tremendous invasion of privacy that ought to spur serious distrust in the person leading the company. (Somehow, I don’t anticipate Musk and Carlson spending much time on the topic.)

Musk’s AI plans are either misguided or malicious

Musk also spent a portion of the interview talking about the future of artificial intelligence. He expressed fear that artificial intelligence robots are “being trained to be politically correct, which is simply another way of ... saying untruthful things.”

That right-wing claim runs counter to technologists who’ve noted that widespread failures in artificial intelligence technology — like the failure of some facial recognition technology to accurately identify Black women's faces — worsens racial and gender inequality. 

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Nonetheless, Musk says he is in the process of developing his own AI robots, reportedly known as “TruthGPT,” which presumably won’t be programmed to address these issues or others that commonly fall under the conservative umbrella of “political correctness.”

Musk clearly wants to be a power player in the increasingly influential AI space, and many of the people operating in that space have already warned about the danger he poses.

In the Fox interview, for example, Musk warns of AI robots obtaining human-like characteristics, and he and Carlson fret over the potential for soon-to-be-developed AI robots to "annihilate humans."

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Musk and other Big Tech players have used similar claims to call for a pause in the creation of new, powerful AI robots.

But a group of AI ethicists has denounced these calls, arguing Big Tech players like Musk are using this language to distract from the issues AI already poses: like Twitter's algorithm, for example.

"It is indeed time to act: but the focus of our concern should not be imaginary 'powerful digital minds,'" the ethicists wrote earlier this year, name-checking Musk in the letter. "Instead, we should focus on the very real and very present exploitative practices of the companies claiming to build them, who are rapidly centralizing power and increasing social inequities."

 On Sunday's edition of MSNBC's Inside with Jen Psaki, United States Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) is urging the Department of Justice to begin investigating the numerous reports that Supreme Court Associate Justice Clarence Thomas failed to disclose his monied dealings with billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow.



"There were new revelations, Senator, this week about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas and his financial relationship with billionaire Harlan Crow. And just this morning there's even new reporting about some inaccuracies on his financial disclosure forms," Psaki pointed out.

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"Your colleague, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, is calling on the Department of Justice to investigate Clarence Thomas for potential ethics violations. Do you back Senator Whitehouse's call?" Psaki asked.

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"Well, I think, Senator Whitehouse is on the right track. The Supreme Court does not have to go along with the same type of ethics rules that members of Congress and other judges do, and it's time we ended that leniency for the Supreme Court," Sanders said.

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"Some of what we're reading about in terms of Judge Thomas is really quite outrageous, and I think it needs to be investigated," he insisted.

"By the Department of Justice?" Psaki clarified.

"Yes. Right," Sanders confirmed.

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Psaki noted that "a number of colleagues of yours in the House, and in the Senate too, have call – have said he should be impeached. Do you think that if wrongdoing is found, he should be impeached?" Psaki posited.

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"Well, I think the first thing you wanna do before you impeach somebody is investigate the situation," Sanders replied. "And I think that is what the Department of Justice should be doing."

Watch below or at this link.


 

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Trump posted a video today that lays out an excellent plan to restore justice in America.

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In the video Trump says he’s gonna appoint one hundred US Attorneys who will be the “most ferocious legal warriors against crime and communist corruption that this country has ever seen.”

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Trump also plans to completely overhaul the DOJ and FBI, and to launch civil rights investigations of “marxist local district attorneys.”

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This is really good stuff and I hope he can follow through with the plan. It didn’t go as well as planned during the first four years, but Trump is a lot smarter and has more experience when it comes to hiring good people and governing the country. Because of that I think he’d have a better chance at doing something profound like this if he becomes president again.

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I know that some of you think I’m anti-Trump, but I want you to know that’s simply not true. I’ve been a Trump supporter for a long time and acknowledge that he did many great things as president and could do more with another four years. If Trump would just stick to this kind of campaigning I would love it. I like this. What I don’t like is all the other stuff, which I’ve made well know and won’t go into here. But I encourage more of this, whether DeSantis runs or not.

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 A White House spokesperson told TPM that they’ll instead depend on the appellate process, and are 'prepared for a long legal fight'


Dueling federal rulings Friday night — one staying the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of abortion drug mifepristone, and one ordering the FDA to maintain the status quo of the drug’s availability for more than a dozen states involved — stirred up a flurry of speculation and lobbying regarding the Biden administration’s next steps. 

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Some of those advocates had long been laying the groundwork for their positions. The decision revoking the approval came from Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, a constant Biden administration foe and former anti-abortion lawyer. Before Friday, the question had been not if but when he’d issue a ruling to limit abortion access.

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“I believe the Food and Drug Administration has the authority to ignore this ruling, which is why I’m again calling on President Biden and the FDA to do just that,” Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) said Friday. “The FDA, doctors, and pharmacies can and must go about their jobs like nothing has changed and keep mifepristone accessible to women across America. If they don’t, the consequences of banning the most common method of abortion in every single state will be devastating.”

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Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Mazie Hirono (D-HI) recently appealed to the White House to use any tools at its disposal to keep the drug available, including its enforcement discretion. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) also called on the administration to “ignore” the Friday decision. 

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The White House told TPM Monday that it will not heed those calls. 

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“No,” a White House spokesperson said, when asked whether it plans to ignore Kacsmaryk’s ruling, and any future decisions upholding it, and have the FDA use its enforcement discretion to leave mifepristone on the market.

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“We stand by FDA’s approval of mifepristone, and we are prepared for a long legal fight, if needed,” the spokesperson continued. “The focus of the Administration is on ensuring that we prevail in the courts. There is a process in place for appealing this decision and we will pursue that process vigorously and do everything we can to prevail in the courts.”

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It’s in keeping with how members of the administration have talked publicly about the case — emphasizing the judicial procedure, though not talking about what it’ll do if its attempts to go through a series of right-wing courts to retain FDA approval are unsuccessful.

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Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Beccera sidestepped CNN host Dana Bash’s prodding about potentially ignoring the ruling Sunday, emphasizing that, should the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court uphold Kacsmaryk’s decision, it would open the floodgates to lawsuits challenging the FDA’s judgment on the safety and efficacy of drugs across the board. 

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“First and foremost, when you turn upside down the entire FDA approval process, you’re not talking about just mifepristone,” he said. “You’re talking about every kind of drug. You’re talking about our vaccines. You’re talking about insulin. You’re talking about the new Alzheimer’s drugs that may come on.”

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He came closest to the question when Bash asked whether he was “taking off the table” directing the FDA to ignore a ban. 

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“Everything is on the table,” he said. “The President said that way back when the Dobbs decision came out. Every option is on the table.”

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Though as the White House told TPM Monday, directing the agency to ignore the rulings is apparently not.

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On Monday, Beccera added during an appearance in Atlanta that the administration will be “vigorous in defending the Food and Drug Administration’s approval process.” 

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But part of the reason Wyden and others have been pushing the nonenforcement idea is that only hostile courts lie ahead for the administration: the notoriously right-wing 5th Circuit and the Supreme Court. This is by design, and of a piece with the judge shopping practice right-wing litigants have perfected under Biden’s presidency. 

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The administration has appealed Kacsmaryk’s ruling to the 5th Circuit; it’ll likely appeal to the Supreme Court if the appeals court either upholds the ruling, or declines to put it on pause while the case works its way through the upper courts. 

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The administration has a few days to strategize: Kacsmaryk put his ruling on a one-week delay to give the DOJ time to appeal. There’s also the contradictory ruling out of Washington to consider, ordering the administration to keep mifepristone available for several states. Some have urged the administration to cite that ruling and declare its hands tied on the question of whether to keep the drug on the market. Administration lawyers in that case asked for further guidance from Eastern District of Washington Judge Thomas Rice Monday. 

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Major abortion providers made it clear that at least for the duration of Kacsmaryk’s delay, nothing has changed. 

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“Like we said before — we follow directives from the FDA, and not anti-abortion judges in Texas who lack any formal medical training,” Whole Woman’s Health said in a tweet. “Whole Woman’s Health will continue to dispense Mife in our clinics and our Pills by Mail Program for the next week as we monitor both decisions.” 

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“Nothing has changed yet: medication abortions with mifepristone are still available,” Trust Women tweeted. “Now, as ever, it’s critically important to support your local abortion funds and clinics, and contact your legislators and demand that mife remains legal health care.”

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Many Republicans, including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-TX) and John Cornyn (R-TX), are criticizing the Democrats’ calls for the FDA to use its enforcement discretion as lawless. And at least one Republican is making noise about coming for the FDA, should the administration reverse itself on ignoring the rulings.

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“As an appropriator on the House Republican side, I look at it, the House Republicans have the power of the purse,” Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) said Sunday on CNN. “And if the administration wants to not lead this ruling — not live up to this ruling, then we’re going to have a problem. And it may come a point where House Republicans on the appropriation side have to defund FDA programs that don’t make sense.”

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Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) quickly jumped on the suggestion Monday.

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“We’re not defunding the FDA,” he tweeted. “Republicans care more about enacting a national abortion ban than they do about making sure everyone has safe food to eat.”


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