When Elon Musk arrived at VivaTech, a number one expertise convention in France, his presence had a right away impact, as occasion founder Maurice Levy of Publicis Groupe was fast to level out. Suddenly everybody wished to be there. Musk’s go to represented a considerable funding for the group, with rumors of a payment of round 1,000,000 euros, personal airplane excluded. The tech star’s dazzle might have dimmed considerably, however innovators nonetheless welcome him with open arms.

New Hope for Neurological Patients

An admitted introvert who may also be eloquent and at instances even poetic, Musk answered each query he was requested. But the one actual information he needed to share involved Neuralink, the biotech firm he cofounded to develop implantable neural interfaces. “Hopefully later this year, we’ll do our first human device implantation on someone who has quadriplegia and potentially restore full body function,” Musk mentioned. “You can imagine if Steven Hawking were alive today, what a profound change that would be.

Neuroprosthetics could offer hope for people affected by incurable neurological conditions. The San Francisco-based company shares a building with OpenAI, a venture Musk also cofounded that has made headlines for its generative artificial intelligence algorithm, ChatGPT. France has also been pursuing Musk to open a second Tesla factory in the country, but he did not reveal anything regarding those plans.

“Potentially Catastrophic”

On the subject of synthetic intelligence, Musk reaffirmed his place that a moratorium on AI development is important (on the finish of March he referred to as for such a pause, together with different tech leaders). “I think there’s a real danger for digital super intelligence having negative consequences. If we are not careful, it could have a potentially catastrophic outcome. So we need to minimize the probability that something will go wrong. I’m in favor of AI regulation because I think advanced AI is a risk to the public. And anything that’s a risk to the public, there needs to be some kind of referee, and that referee is the regulator,” Musk mentioned.

Freedom of Speech

During the VivaTech panel, Musk additionally mentioned Twitter, one other scorching matter for the entrepreneur who has based or led PayPal, Tesla, and Space X, amongst different corporations. “If I am so smart, why did I pay so much for Twitter then?” he requested the gang, referring to the $44 billion he spent on the platform. He additionally described a few of the radical modifications on the website in current months: “We’ve gotten rid of 90 percent of the bots and the scams. It was a problem that had been going on for 10 years, and no action,” he mentioned. When pressed by Christel Heydemann, CEO of the French telecommunications firm Orange Group, Musk defended his platform’s permissive moderation policies. After the January 6 assault on Capitol Hill in 2021, Twitter had blocked accounts equivalent to that of then-president Donald Trump. When Musk bought the platform in 2022, he ushered in what he describes as a return to free speech ideas.

“We call it freedom of speech, not freedom of reach,” he advised the viewers. “Yes, you can say offensive things, but then your content is going to get rated down. So if you’re a jerk, your reach will drop.” He continued, “I think people should be able to say things because the alternative is censorship. I think if you go down the censorship route, it’s only a matter of time before censorship is turned upon you.” Twitter, he provides, “was having a corrosive effect on civil society, but I think today most people would say their experience has improved.”

Before his journey to France, Musk stopped in Italy, a go to that seems to have helped consolidate the sympathies of right-wing supporters in his battle in opposition to the Digital Services Act. Musk, together with different tech leaders, opposes the bundle of EU guidelines on platform legal responsibility that features necessities to block fake news and restrict online violence. And it’s exactly the right-wing political forces in Europe that would assist curb measures proposed by the European Commission.

There was time on the finish of Musk’s look for just a few questions from the viewers. A girl took benefit of the chance handy Musk her enterprise card. He awkwardly accepted, and he or she acquired a spherical of applause. A real startup second.

This story originally appeared at Wired Italia.