Also, dang, is there anything we can do to keep the comments on this submission tech-focused? Perhaps the Elon-bashing political digression can be split into its own thread?
Unfortunately, Elon has made himself a spectacle. To separate him and his intentions out from the technology itself would be a disservice to the discourse as a whole.
What concrete danger do you imagine will happen as a result of xAI being controlled by Elon? Try to be as concrete as possible.
and those are pretty terrible, anti-science, and petty
This isn't something specific to xAI, but it turns out that the person who controls xAI also holds an unusually strong influence over the highest level government officials. These officials can use xAI as an excuse to implement harmful policy, "because the computer said this is the best course of action"- not unlike people who end up driving on train tracks or into large bodies of water because their GPS told them to go that way.
I for one was ready to welcome my AI overlords once they were mature and tested. It was an inevitability. Because of the relationship between this oligarch and the government though it looks like the time line has accelerated and we're going to see misplaced trust in tools that aren't ready for what we're about to hand them.