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Billionaire Elon Musk has ignited a new feud with Apple, blasting the tech giant's integration of OpenAI's ChatGPT into the upcoming iOS 18 as a "security violation" that could lead to a ban on Tesla vehicles from Apple's facilities.
In a fiery series of tweets yesterday, Musk claimed Apple's plan to embed the viral AI chatbot into iPhone messaging apps and digital assistants like Siri creates "potential cybersecurity defect vectors" by exposing users' personal data to unknown entities.
"You have no idea whose training data was used for ChatGPT, or what security holes may have been left open for hackers to exploit," he wrote. "A wide release before vetting is insanity."
An anonymous source allegedly close to Musk told The Verge that the Tesla CEO sees ChatGPT as an "uncontrolled experiment that could create an existential crisis for humanity if guided by bad data or intent."
ChatGPT's underlying language model was trained on a massive online dataset scraped from the internet, including potential disinformation sources and explicit content. Critics argue this lack of curation and transparency creates risks for harmful or biased outputs if not carefully controlled.
Apple has not publicly commented on Musk's specific critisicm, but a spokesperson told Bloomberg the company "is committed to responsibly developing AI in a way that prioritizes privacy, security, and the wellbeing of our users."
However, Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo claims the tech giant is already considering "drastically limiting or outright banning" Tesla vehicles from Apple Park and other corporate facilities worldwide over Musk's "offloads against iOS 18 and its AI strategy."
"Kuo said Tesla employees could face termination if driving a Tesla vehicle on Apple property, citing an internal memo allegedly circulated to Apple staff.
The reported memo states: "If you have a Tesla at home, we request you no longer bring it to work at any Apple premises. We'll be actively monitoring for violations with consequences up to and including termination."
It's unclear if Musk's attacks are motivated by tech rivalries, genuine security concerns, or his $44 billion ownership of Twitter - which could be impacted by AI chatbots that can generate written content.
Tech analyst Dan Ives described the conflict as "uncharted waters" that could "pour more gasoline" on the simmering tensions between Musk and Apple if it escalates into a workplace ban.
Tesla has not publicly commented on the potential action from Apple over Musk's ChatGPT criticisms.
