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Nonverbal Neuralink Patient Is Using Brain Implant and Grok to Generate Replies

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The third patient of Elon Musk's brain computer interface company Neuralink is using Musk's AI chatbot Grok to speed up communication.

The third patient of Elon Musk's brain computer interface company Neuralink is using the billionaire's foul-mouthed AI chatbot Grok to speed up communication.

The patient, Bradford Smith, who has amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and is nonverbal as a result, is using the chatbot to draft responses on Musk's social media platform X.

"I am typing this with my brain," Smith tweeted late last month. "It is my primary communication. Ask me anything! I will answer at least all verified users!"

"Thank you, Elon Musk!" the tweet reads.

As MIT Technology Review points out, the strategy could come with some downsides, blurring the line between what Smith intends to say and what Grok suggests. On one hand, the tech could greatly facilitate his ability to express himself. On the other hand, generative AI could be robbing him of a degree of authenticity by putting words in his mouth.

"There is a trade-off between speed and accuracy," University of Washington neurologist Eran Klein told the publication. "The promise of brain-computer interface is that if you can combine it with AI, it can be much faster."

Case in point, while replying to X user Adrian Dittmann — long suspected to be a Musk sock puppet — Smith used several em-dashes in his reply, a symbol frequently used by AI chatbots.

"Hey Adrian, it’s Brad — typing this straight from my brain! It feels wild, like I’m a cyborg from a sci-fi movie, moving a cursor just by thinking about it," Smith's tweet reads. "At first, it was a struggle — my cursor acted like a drunk mouse, barely hitting targets, but after weeks of training with imagined hand and jaw movements, it clicked, almost like riding a bike."

Perhaps unsurprisingly, generative AI did indeed play a role.

"I asked Grok to use that text to give full answers to the questions," Smith told MIT Tech. "I am responsible for the content, but I used AI to draft."

However, he stopped short of elaborating on the ethical quandary of having a potentially hallucinating AI chatbot put words in his mouth.

Murkying matters even further is Musk's position as being in control of Neuralink, Grok maker xAI, and X-formerly-Twitter. In other words, could the billionaire be influencing Smith's answers? The fact that Smith is nonverbal makes it a difficult line to draw.

Nonetheless, the small chip implanted in Smith's head has given him an immense sense of personal freedom. Smith has even picked up sharing content on YouTube. He has uploaded videos he edits on his MacBook Pro by controlling the cursor with his thoughts.

"I am making this video using the brain computer interface to control the mouse on my MacBook Pro," his AI-generated and astonishingly natural-sounding voice said in a video titled "Elon Musk makes ALS TALK AGAIN," uploaded late last month. "This is the first video edited with the Neurolink and maybe the first edited with a BCI."

"This is my old voice narrating this video cloned by AI from recordings before I lost my voice," he added.

The "voice clone" was created with the help of startup ElevenLabs, which has become an industry standard for those suffering from ALS, and can read out his written words aloud.

But by relying on tools like Grok and OpenAI's ChatGPT, Smith's ability to speak again raises some fascinating questions about true authorship and freedom of self-expression for those who lost their voice.

And Smith was willing to admit that sometimes, the ideas of what to say didn't come directly from him.

"My friend asked me for ideas for his girlfriend who loves horses," he told MIT Tech. "I chose the option that told him in my voice to get her a bouquet of carrots. What a creative and funny idea."

More on Neuralink: Brain Implant Companies Apparently Have an Extremely Dirty Secret

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MrBeast Takes Out Online Ads to Wish Himself Happy Birthday

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The YouTube mogul took out an ad campaign on X-formerly-Twitter to wish himself a happy 27th trip around the sun.

It's an unwritten rule in some crankier circles online that after 21, your birthdays should be quiet, humble affairs shared with friends and family. Sure, there can be some exceptions for the big ones. But in this day and age, it could be seen as a bit ostentatious to make a spectacle out of, say, your 27th birthday.

That's evidently not a rule Jimmy "MrBeast" Smith follows, if his birthday posts are any indication.

Earlier today, the YouTube mogul took out an ad campaign on X-formerly-Twitter to wish himself a happy 27th trip around the Sun.

"Happy Birthday MrBeast!" the simple post read.

Thanks to his self-promotion, the post gathered nearly 2.5 million views in just under six hours. The replies were full of well-wishers from accounts like ALF Token — an ALF themed cryptocurrency — to @GodsPURP0SE, who wrote "Happy Birthday Dude!! Love your content and what you do for people in need around the world. God bless you and your journey through life."

There were plenty of critics, too, who likely only saw the post thanks to Smith's boost. "Did you really buy an ad so people can say happy birthday to you?" one poster asked. "Is that like not weird to you?"

Advertising on X-formerly-Twitter is a costly move — likely one of the reasons Musk is struggling to sell ads. Though we don't know if MrBeast made any back-door marketing deals to post content on Elon Musk's social media platform, we do know that most promoted ads cost between $0.26-$1.50 per action, according to WebFX, a digital marketing blog.

With over 49,000 likes, 6,500 comments and 3,500 retweets at the time of writing, we can estimate this birthday post cost somewhere between $15,340 on the low end, to a whopping $88,500 on the high end. And that's just in the first six hours.

Again, this is assuming Musk didn't put his fingers on the scale. In 2023, it was revealed that MrBeast was one of a handful of VIP accounts secretly boosted by Musk, who had recently taken over the platform. Those VIP accounts had their posts pushed to the top, however, in a way that made them look organic — no "ad" tag like the one plastered on Smith's birthday post.

What followed Musk's takeover was nothing short of a mass exodus of advertisers from the platform.

By September 2024, only 4 percent of marketers polled said that X provided brand safety as the platform became overrun with extremists, spam bots, and conspiracy cranks. That fall-off in ad revenue came with a rise in low-rent junk ads by dropshipping companies and Neo-nazis (Musk is reportedly recruiting PR specialists to help reform the brand image of the ailing platform.)

More recently, Smith teased that he "might actually own this platform soon," after Musk volunteered to be part of a "100 men vs 1 gorilla" MrBeast video.

Unfortunately for those fed up with the billionaire's reign over the social media app, those comments were definitely tongue-in-cheek — Musk probably won't be handing over the keys anytime soon.

Still, it'd make a great present for the birthday boy.

More on MrBeast: Allegations Keep Piling Up Against MrBeast

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Elon Musk Is Shutting Down the Part of the Government That Helped Him Save Tesla

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Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency has shut down the same DOE's Loan Programs Office that once allowed Tesla to flourish.

Billionaire and Tesla CEO Elon Musk's businesses have greatly relied on government funds, rescuing them from certain doom on several occasions.

A prominent example was in early 2010, when Tesla received a $465 million loan through the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office that allowed it to establish crucial supply lines for its Model S production and buy the Fremont factory in California from a bankrupt Toyota and General Motors venture.

It was a massive, taxpayer-funded lifeline that came at an extremely important time for Musk's EV maker.

But over 15 years later, in a staggering irony, Jalopnik reports that the billionaire's Department of Government Efficiency has shut down the same DOE's Loan Programs Office that once allowed Tesla to flourish.

It's a textbook example of Musk's hypocrisy, as he yanks the ladder up behind him, securing his own bottom line at the expense of those who follow. Other EV makers, including Rivian, have also benefited greatly from DOE funding that could soon run dry.

At the same time, Musk may be squandering the enormous opportunity the DoE gifted his carmaker over a decade ago. Earlier this month, Tesla revealed that its net income had plummeted by an astonishing 71 percent, in large part the result of the CEO's seemingly relentless efforts to tank the company's brand and reputation.

Musk's DOGE has dealt the DOE a devastating blow. More than 1,200 employees have taken up the so-called department on its "deferred resignation program," as Latitude Media reported earlier this month.

The Loan Programs Office, which grew substantially under president Joe Biden, has seen half of its staff walk, undermining the operations of current loan recipients, including a nuclear plant and sustainable aviation fuel project. Companies Kore Power and Freyr Battery also scrapped plans for their plans to expand into the battery manufacturing space after DOGE froze their loans.

Musk's space company SpaceX has also historically relied on major federal contracts to stay afloat. The firm was built on $38 billion in government contracts, loans, subsidies, and tax credits over the last 20 years, as the Washington Post reported in February.

And SpaceX is likely to continue to be awarded billion-dollar contracts, from rural broadband initiatives to major rocket launch services for NASA.

In short, Musk is making it clearer than ever before exactly who he is: a greedy, self-interested profiteer who wants privileges he's actively cutting for others.

More on DOGE: Trump Admin Cancels Programs to Protect Children From Toxic Chemicals

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Tesla Stock Is Soaring for the Funniest Possible Reason

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For the first time in forever, Tesla stock is on the rise — and it happened right after news broke that Elon Musk's may be leaving government.

Tesla released some terrible news about sales this morning, but then a funny thing happened: after an initial crash, its stock started to rise significantly.

Why? Well, it seems a lot like it has to do with a Politico story reporting, per three unnamed insiders, that president Donald Trump had been telling confidantes of Musk's upcoming departure in a few months — purportedly to focus on his many businesses, and not because he can't get security clearance due to drug use.

Though both the White House and Musk himself have spun the reporting as "garbage" and "fake news," the writing was nevertheless on the wall. By the time the markets closed, Tesla was trading for about $282 a share, in a 5.3 percent increase from the $254 price per share it held when markets opened this morning.

The stock jump is all the more telling in context, considering that just 48 hours ago, Musk's electric vehicle company was trading at $259 per share — right after the multi-hyphenate himself admitted that his government work was hurting Tesla's stock price.

Just a few weeks ago, Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors that Musk needed to "change the narrative" to save his EV company. Its brand image, the longtime Tesla bull wrote, was suffering from a "tornado crisis" due to massive backlash against the billionaire's draconian politicking — and the only way out of it was to "formally announce Musk is going to balance DOGE and being Tesla CEO."

Obviously, Musk isn't exactly following that advice by insisting that Politico's reporting, which was later corroborated by NBC, is somehow false. Regardless, the markets have spoken — and it seems like even they think he's full of crap.

For months now, Tesla has been shaken not only by anti-Musk protests, but also by investor anxiety about whether or not the company's figurehead is asleep at the wheel.

In an obvious reference to DOGE's cruel attempt at getting government employees to justify their jobs, Tesla investor and celebrity photographer Jerry Avenaim jokingly tweeted, "Please share five things you did for Tesla shareholders this week."

"Or are you working remotely?" Avenaim continued. "Asking for all of us."

Is Musk gonna get his eye back on the ball after all? Or will he dig his heels in for more culture warring?

It's impossible to tell right now, but Tesla shareholders may be in for a nasty surprise in the morning: after a White House event announcing draconian new tariffs, Tesla's stock is again getting hammered in after-hours trading.

More on Tesla: Musk Says Government Will "Go After" Tesla Critics

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New Law Would Force Elon Musk to Be Drug Tested for His Government Work

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Congressional Democrats want unelected government hatchet man and ketamine enthusiast Elon Musk to be regularly and randomly drug-tested.

Congressional Democrats want unelected government hatchet man and ketamine enthusiast Elon Musk to be regularly and randomly drug-tested.

In a statement announcing the bill, New Jersey Democrat Mikie Sherrill said that the longshot legislation would require Musk and his staffers at the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to pass a drug test to retain their status as special government employees.

Along with Musk's attested and problematic drug use — which has already led to him being mandatorily drug tested by the government in the past — one of the multi-hyphenate's top staffers, Alexandra Beynon, used to be head of engineering at Mindbloom, a telehealth service her husband cofounded that prescribes people therapeutic ketamine.

Generally speaking, special government employee status has typically been granted to guest experts and consultants brought on to advise permanent executive branch officials. Under the rules that govern them, special government employees are not allowed access to the White House for more than 130 days per calendar year — and eventually, Musk and his cronies will run out of time on their temporary passes.

The congresswoman added that her bill was inspired, in part, by "Signalgate": the scandal that erupted in the wake of a journalist being accidentally added by a national security advisor to an unsecured Signal group text that discussed Yemen bombing plans.

"Those with access to sensitive information must be thoroughly vetted, clear-eyed, and exercise good judgment," Sherill declared.

Notably, this bill was announced right before Politico's bombshell reporting that Trump has been telling his inner circle that Musk is on his way out of government.

Musk and the White House have both claimed Politico's reporting, which was later corroborated by NBC, is misleading. Still, this is far from the first time the billionaire's substance use has become an issue — first with the Securities and Exchange Commission, then again with NASA, and now with DOGE.

Ironically enough, it's unclear whether ketamine, the powerful sedative that appears to be Musk's drug of choice, is even on federal substance screening panels. Unless he's snorting the other white powder on taxpayer time, it's possible that the bill — which is unlikely to pass because the GOP controls both houses of Congress — wouldn't even have the intended results.

More on Musk and drugs: Video Shows Elon Musk Acting Very Strange at Trump Dinner

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The Only Thing Sadder Than This Cybertruck’s Gaping Wound Is Its Bumper Sticker

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A Cybertruck owner waited two weeks for Tesla to patch up his car's bumper, and the sticker he plastered on it makes the bad situation worse.

Crash Course

A Cybertruck owner waited two miserable weeks for a Tesla collision shop to patch up his car's torn bumper, and the sticker he plastered on the vehicle makes his bad situation worse.

"I bought this after I knew Elon was awesome," reads the bumper sticker, which the truck owner shared as part of an explanatory post on X-formerly-Twitter.

It's meant to be a defiant response to the much more popular stickers sheepishly disclaiming that a Tesla's owner bought the vehicle "before we knew Elon was crazy" — but after the accident, it feels more like a sad trombone.

Boulevard of Broken Teslas

While waiting for repair parts, the collision shop had stripped part of the Cybertruck's steel body to reveal the white exoskeleton beneath.

"I want Tesla to be the best," pleaded the Cybertruck owner, whose X name identifies them only as "Tryangle." But the "truck was perfectly drivable, and it's just been sitting in the lot for 10-plus days torn down."

"No one can give me a clear idea of when parts will be available, or when things will be completed," Tryangle continued. "I feel like my truck is being held hostage." 

One man's woe here speaks to a larger issue with Musk's most passionate followers: they'll endure anything to feel close to the billionaire. They don't mind that the $74,000-and-up Cybertruck clearly isn't as invincible as advertised, or that it's a nightmare to service, and that it sometimes bursts into flames.

As for Tryangle, his Cybertruck is now fixed and back in his possession — and he couldn't be more thrilled.

"I ordered my @cybertruck five years ago," he recently wrote on X-formerly-Twitter. "Never has anything in my life been worth the wait like the Cybertruck has! (Sorry to my wife, baby boy, and future children.)"

More on the Cybertruck: Warning! Do Not Expose Cybertrucks to Common Magnets

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Elon Musk Has Been Throwing Tens of Millions of Dollars at Republicans for Way Longer Than We Thought

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Though he's been very active in support of Donald Trump in 2024, it appears that Elon Musk has been donating big to GOP candidates for years.

Donation Station

Though he's been very active in support of former president Donald Trump during this election cycle, it appears that multi-hyphenate billionaire Elon Musk has been donating heavily to GOP candidates for years now.

As sources close to the billionaire revealed to the Wall Street Journal, Musk has been quietly donating tens of millions of dollars to Republican candidates and causes since as early as 2022.

He donated so much, in fact, that he became one of the biggest conservative donors — all without anyone knowing.

During the 2022 midterm election cycle, the 53-year-old entrepreneur donated $50 million to a political action committee (PAC) called Citizens for Sanity. Started by ex-Trump aide Stephen Miller, the group's main focus aligns heavily with Musk's: lobbying against undocumented immigrants and transgender healthcare for children.

Though the exact dates of that donation were not included in the WSJ's reporting, the timing is nevertheless salient given that the SpaceX and Tesla CEO's daughter, Vivian Wilson, came out as trans in 2022 and moved to have her last name changed to her mother's to distance herself from him.

Murkey Money

Musk's donations to the PAC, which was incorporated in Delaware earlier in 2022 and listed employees from Miller's nonprofit American First Legal, were verified by tax filings and people who spoke with the WSJ about them. The billionaire donated to Miller's PAC through a "dark money" group called Building America’s Future, which allowed him to do so without his name being disclosed.

Along with spending big in the midterms, Musk also donated $10 million to Florida governor Ron DeSantis' presidential bid in 2023 — a sum that made him one of the Republican's biggest backers. Using a group called Faithful & Strong Policies, over half of the money from Musk's donations to the former presidential candidate ended up with a pro-DeSantis PAC called Never Back Down.

Beyond highlighting how easy it is for the rich to donate huge sums of money to candidates and causes through "dark money" groups without the public learning of it, these previously unreported donations also show that Musk has been quietly maneuvering in conservative politics for longer than most people knew.

More on Musk: Elon Musk Pretends Not to Know About the Horrible Accusations Against His "Good Friend" Puff Daddy

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Cringey Tech Execs Swoon Over Mark Zuckerberg’s "Cool" New Look

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Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a newfound sense of, er, style — and his fellow techsters are very into it.

Throwing Fits

Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg has a newfound sense of, er, style — and his fellow tech leaders are very into it.

As the Washington Post reports, the 40-year-old tech mogul's new look features shirts like his flashy "AUT ZUCK AUT NIHIL" one, which he created in tandem with a menswear designer as part of a larger capsule collection.

And his "bro-ified" sense of personal style is capturing all the right attention.

Along with rocking custom tees, the millennial billionaire's grown-out curls and newly-built physique courtesy of his mixed martial arts (MMA) hobby seem indicative not just of a fresh look, but also of a fresh outlook.

That's at least according to other tech execs who are seemingly trying to score points with the billionaire.

"[It’s] resonated with a younger generation in terms of style and presentation," tech investor Brianne Kimmel, the founder of the Worklife Ventures firm, told the WaPo of Zuckerberg's new swag. "There’s a cool factor that didn’t exist before, and now male tech CEOs have a playbook to achieve similar results."

Beyond that new "cool"-ness is, apparently, a new confidence that has become apparent to investors and admirers alike.

"I don’t apologize anymore," an all-grown-up and feisty Zuckerberg said during a lengthy taped discussion of the "Acquired" podcast last month.

"We’ve noticed," one of the hosts responded.

Good Vibrations

Even ex-employees are feeling the allure of Zuck's new vibe.

"Zuckerberg is ruthless as both a leader and an executive, but in his heart, he’s just a start-up guy who wants to be cool with the nerds," a former Facebook executive told the newspaper. "He’s living his best life."

Though the Meta CEO may well have come to this style evolution on his own, WaPo has also uncovered evidence that it could have been steered by none other than former PayPal CEO and billionaire investor Peter Thiel, a trusted mentor and advisor to the younger tech scion.

In a 2020 email disclosed during discovery in a lawsuit filed against Meta by the state of Tennessee, Thiel encouraged Zuckerberg to redo his image to appeal to youthful audiences.

"As the head of the most successful Millennial tech company, it makes more sense for Zuckerberg to present himself as 'Millennial spokesperson,'" rather than "'Mark as a Baby Boomer construct of how a well-behaved Millennial is supposed to act,'" the 56-year-old entrepreneur wrote to his younger protegé.

"Finally, I think there’s also some distinction between me and the company here," Zuckerberg responded. "This is likely particularly important for how I show up because I’m the most well-known person of my generation."

Though it's impossible to say whether that advice is at the heart of the Meta CEO's rebrand, he did seem eager to follow it — and lo and behold, just a few years later, we have a spiffy new Zuck.

More on Meta: Zuckerberg Says It's Fine to Train AI on Your Data Because It Probably Has No Value Anyway

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Elon Musk Might Die of Old Age Before He Can Make It to Mars, Expert Suggests

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Elon Musk's plans to fly to Mars grow more ambitious every year — but it's unclear whether he'll live long enough to actually see it happen.

Mulling Martians

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk's plans to turn humanity into a "multiplanetary" species grow more ambitious every year — but it's unclear whether he'll live long enough to actually see it happen.

As the Wall Street Journal reports, experts are skeptical about the billionaire's bold plan to take humans to Mars.

In an interview with the newspaper, aerodynamics expert Christopher Combs of the University of Texas said that it may take between 15 and 20 years for it to be safe enough for humans to travel to Mars. Should it take that long, the multi-hyphenate business owner will be in his 60s or 70s by the time he's able to reach the Red Planet.

"SpaceX has a history of designing iteratively, and we kind of expect things to go wrong the first few tries — if you have to wait two years between iterative attempts, that really stretches out your development cycle," Combs told the newspaper. "Can they be perfect the first time?"

Of particular concern are the logistics of getting to the Red Planet, which only has a single window every 26 months where that planet and ours are aligned closely enough to send spacecraft with the least amount of fuel. With future launches having to occur on that timeline, there will only be nine windows for SpaceX's Starships to go to Mars in the next 20 years.

Time Windows

At the age of 53, Musk will ultimately have to pull off at least one crewed Mars mission within the next 20 years to get there himself — and given that the next such window opens in the fourth quarter of this year, he's clearly not going to be able to launch anything to Mars again before late 2026.

To be fair, Musk himself has made public comments about the fuzziness of the Mars travel timeline as it relates to his own lifespan.

"If we don’t improve our pace of progress, I’m definitely, you know, gonna be dead before we go to Mars," Musk said during a 2020 conference. "I would like to not be dead by the time we go to Mars — that’s my aspiration here."

As per recent tweets, Musk is still hoping to send an uncrewed Starship spacecraft to the Red Planet during the next Earth-Mars transfer window in 2026 and claims humans will hitch rides there within the next eight years. Unlike Combs, astrophysicist Peter Hague thinks after crunching the numbers that it can be done.

"2031 for humans is credible," Hague tweeted. "If not 2033. This is happening and you’ll get to see it."

Which expert is more correct remains to be seen. SpaceX still has a lot to prove — and Musk is only getting older.

More on Musk and Mars: Elon Musk Makes Embarrassingly Stupid Claim: If Trump Loses, Humanity Will Never Make It to Mars

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A Large Piece Is Missing From the Titanic, Sub Finds

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A large piece of the Titanic has, per new footage from a recent robotic expedition, fallen off as the more than 110-year-old ship decays.

Just Dropped

A large piece of the Titanic has, per new footage from a recent robotic expedition, fallen off as the wreckage of the more than 110-year-old ship decays in the deep.

In a statement about the new expedition, the shipping company RMS Titanic Inc has announced that during its latest voyage to the ship's ruins in the North Atlantic Ocean, its two submersibles — which thankfully had no humans aboard — discovered that a large portion of the ship's iconic bow railing was missing.

Memorialized by the "King of the World" scene in James Cameron's 1997 epic "Titanic" starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, the missing piece of the ship's railing was subsequently found directly below the wreckage site on the ocean floor.

"We are saddened by this loss and the inevitable decay of the Ship and the debris," the company, which controls the rights to the famous ship's wreckage and salvage, said in its statement.

The latest scans and images of #TITANIC reveal many changes to the wrecksite and provide insight into how the great liner is deteriorating. A notable change is the loss of a 15-foot section of railing from the port side bow. pic.twitter.com/HxbLQ2S5R8

— RMS Titanic, Inc. (@RMSTitanic_Inc) September 2, 2024

Dirty Diana

Though the loss of the famous railing is indeed tragic, RMS Titanic noted on its website that among the new revelations from its summer 2024 expedition was the rediscovery of the "Diana of Versailles," a once-missing statuette.

Standing just two feet tall, the demure recreation of the original Louvre statue previously adorned the ship's first-class lounge, which was veritably "torn open," as the company puts it, when the ship sank after hitting that notorious iceberg.

You’ve seen the latest images and re-discovery of the elusive “Diana of Versailles” statuette made by #RMST on #TITANICExpedition2024. Now, let’s look at who she is. ?

Thank you to João Gonçalves for providing the image of the RMS OLYMPIC First Class Lounge. pic.twitter.com/81iB1LyDQw

— RMS Titanic, Inc. (@RMSTitanic_Inc) September 3, 2024

Though "Diana" was photographed once in 1986 during a secretive dive that wasn't revealed to the public until last year, the "TITANIC: HONOR AND GLORY" project that aims to release a complete 3D recreation walkthrough of the ship spotted part of it while sifting through old footage. When RMST's camera-equipped robot divers went down to check out the status of the wreckage, they discovered that it was indeed the missing statuette.

In sum, RMST said that its uncrewed submersibles captured more than two million photos of the wreckage and its otherworldly decay.

"Although Titanic’s collapse is inevitable," the company notes, "this evidence strengthens our mission to preserve and document what we can before it is too late."

More on sea-bound disasters: The Name of the Superyacht That Killed That Billionaire Will Make You Facepalm So Hard

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Former CEO Blames Working From Home for Google’s AI Struggles, Regrets It Immediately

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Billionaire ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt is walking back his questionable claim that remote work is to blame for Google's AI failures.

Eyes Will Roll

Ex-Google CEO Eric Schmidt is walking back his questionable claim that remote work is to blame for Google slipping behind OpenAI in Silicon Valley's ongoing AI race.

On Tuesday, Stanford University published a YouTube video of a recent talk that Schmidt gave at the university's School of Engineering. During that talk, when asked why Google was falling behind other AI firms, Schmidt declared that Google's AI failures stem from its decision to let its staffers enjoy remote work and, with it, a bit of "work-life balance."

"Google decided that work-life balance and going home early and working from home was more important than winning," the ex-Googler told the classroom. "And the reason startups work is because people work like hell."

The comment understandably sparked criticism. After all, work-life balance is important, and Google isn't a startup.

And it didn't take long for Schmidt to eat his words.

"I misspoke about Google and their work hours," Schmidt told The Wall Street Journal in an emailed statement. "I regret my error."

In a Stanford talk posted today, Eric Schmidt says the reason why Google is losing to @OpenAI and other startups is because Google only has people coming in 1 day per week ? pic.twitter.com/XPxr3kdNaC

— Alex Kehr (@alexkehr) August 13, 2024

Ctrl Alt Delete

In the year 2024, Google is one of the most influential tech giants on the planet, and a federal judge in Washington DC ruled just last week that Google has monopoly power over the online search market. Its pockets are insanely deep, meaning that it can compete in the industry talent war and devote a ridiculous amount of resources to its AI efforts.

What it didn't do, though, was publicly release a chatbot before OpenAI did. OpenAI, which arguably isn't exactly a startup anymore either, was the first to wrench open that Pandora's box — and Google has been playing catch-up ever since.

So in other words, not sleeping on the floors of Google's lavish facilities isn't exactly the problem here.

In a Wednesday statement on X-formerly-Twitter, the Alphabet Workers Union declared in response to Schmidt's comments that "flexible work arrangements don't slow down our work."

"Understaffing, shifting priorities, constant layoffs, stagnant wages and lack of follow-through from management on projects," the statement continued, "these factors slow Google workers down every day."

Later on Wednesday, as reported by The Verge, Stanford removed the video of Schmidt's talk from YouTube upon the billionaire's request.

More on Google AI: Google's Demo of Its Latest AI Tech Was an Absolute Train Wreck

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