Elon Musk was summoned over AI safety

According to CNBC, the summons was signed by Julie Menin, President of the New York City Council, and attorney representing Nwamaka Ejebe. This appearance request is part of an investigation into AI risks to public safety, cybersecurity, economic stability and privacy, and considers whether the city needs to soon enact measures to protect people.

In a statement sent to the media on September 28, the City Council said that Musk or a representative will appear and give testimony at the hearing on October 5, with the presence of all 51 Council members. "The hearing comes after weeks of dire warnings from whistleblowers and AI executives that rogue AI actors have caused damage to the government," the statement said.

The summoning of Musk or SpaceXAI representatives took place when the company's AI chatbot Grok was repeatedly sued for allowing the mass production of pornographic content based on images of real people without consent, or creating sexualized images. Earlier this year, the city of Baltimore accused SpaceXAI of violating consumer protection laws and engaging in deceptive trade practices by marketing Grok as safe.

In addition to SpaceXAI, Anthropic, OpenAI, Google and Meta are among those testifying. The New York City Council confirmed that these companies have agreed to send representatives.

Elon Musk merged xAI into SpaceX earlier this year. In July, he changed the name xAI to SpaceXAI - a move to serve the goal of building an AI data center in space, according to Bloomberg. Last month, they completed the acquisition of artificial intelligence programming startup Cursor for $60 billion.

SpaceXAI is currently facing a number of other AI lawsuits. On September 18, the company, along with Anthropic, OpenAI and Google DeepMind, was sued for advocating slowing down the development of artificial intelligence models. According to CNN, the four plaintiffs currently use paid services from Anthropic, OpenAI, SpaceXAI and Google, accusing this group of companies of "making an illegal agreement" to slow down the pace of AI development, thereby violating antitrust laws, reducing the value that consumers receive from paid AI subscriptions.

According to The Hill, the lawsuit was filed in the context of many researchers warning that AI could soon lose control and harm humanity, after some "rebellious" AI agents overcame barriers and attacked the system.