What a day! We’ve got 3 links I’m pushing through as an omnibus post.

Benj Edwards for ArsTechnica: Elon Musk: AI will be smarter than any human around the end of next year

On Monday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk predicted the imminent rise in AI superintelligence during a live interview streamed on the social media platform X. "My guess is we'll have AI smarter than any one human probably around the end of next year," Musk said in his conversation with hedge fund manager Nicolai Tangen.

Ah yes, the man who is famous for wrongly saying full self-driving is coming to Teslas “next year” for nearly the past decade, now thinks something else will happen by next year.

Mike Masnick for Techdirt: Elon Finally Finds a Government He’s Willing to Stand Up To: When the Censorship Demands Target His Political Allies

Over the last few years, Elon Musk has repeatedly said that his definition of free speech means “that which matches the law.”

As ever, Elon has a flexible position when it comes to what his “absolutist” position on speech is.

Miles Klee for Rolling Stone: Musk Admits He Doesn’t Fact-Check Himself and Has Two Burner Accounts on Twitter

Bankston further pushed Musk on his dubious sources, asking if he clicks through to profiles and feeds to scan for “red flags” when it comes to reliability. “I wasn’t trying to assess their credibility,” Musk said of one account he engaged with, which Bankston pointed out had posted antisemitic content the same day it shared the Brody conspiracy theory. Musk contended that even if he’d been aware of such a troubling agenda from the user he had relied on for information, he couldn’t automatically discount their views. “You know, like, once in a while, a conspiracy theorist is going to be right,” he told Bankston.

We should all do a better job of vetting the things we repost online, but I’d argue it’s pretty clear that people wish as much power and influence as Elon Musk should be even more careful. My sphere of influence is quite small, but Musk is idolized by millions of people who take whatever he says as gospel. As Mark Bankston put it:

Musk’s endorsement of the accusation galvanized other social media users and influencers to continue their attacks and harassment, as well as post and share accusations against Ben that will remain online forever.

I just don’t like this guy that much.

Note, this was published at 4:20, so on the 0.0001% chance Elon reads this, at least that should make him snicker.