Netanyahu also praised Elon Musk for welcoming tens of thousands of banned accounts to the platform.
Washington:
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday urged Elon Musk to fight anti-Semitism on his X platform as he sat down with the tech mogul to discuss artificial intelligence.
The conversation, which aired on Musk’s X platform (formerly Twitter), came as the Tesla tycoon was in conflict with the Anti-Defamation League, a US-based Jewish organization.
Musk has accused the ADL of baseless accusations of anti-Semitism that have deterred advertisers and hurt his company’s revenues, and has threatened a billion-dollar lawsuit.
The ADL has for years accused the social media site of amplifying anti-Semitic hate speech, and has argued that problematic and racist speech against X increased sharply after Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition in October.
“I know your commitment to freedom of expression,” Netanyahu told Musk, who has branded himself a free speech absolutist and welcomed tens of thousands of banned accounts to the platform when he took over.
“I respect that because it is fundamental for democracies, but I also know your opposition to anti-Semitism…,” the prime minister said.
“I hope that you find within the bounds of the First Amendment the ability to stop not only anti-Semitism, or to reverse it as best you can, but also any collective hatred of people that anti-Semitism represents,” Netanyahu said.
Musk said that while his website couldn’t stop all hate speech before it was posted, he was “generally opposed to attacking any group, regardless of who it is.”
“I’m in favor of whatever advances civilization and ultimately leads to us becoming a space-faring civilization, where we understand the nature of the universe,” Musk said.
“We can’t do that when there’s a lot of infighting and then there’s hatred and negativity,” he added.
– ‘Blessing and curse’ –
The main topic of the conversation was the possible consequences of AI.
“I think today we are in many ways at a crossroads for all humanity, where we have to choose between a blessing and a curse,” Netanyahu told Musk.
Musk, who launched his own AI company this year, said he was optimistic that international powers would see the wisdom of establishing common rules for AI to prevent catastrophic outcomes that would affect humanity.
“Every sport has some kind of referee, so that’s the reason for AI safety,” Musk argued, saying a repeat of a nuclear arms race on AI was unwise.
Musk said he recently warned senior officials in China that if AI is “sufficiently powerful and left unattended, the digital superintelligence could be in charge of China, instead of the CCP (the Chinese Communist Party).”
“The CCP prefers to be in charge” and took regulatory action, he added.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
