Jack Dorsey Says 'the Closest Form of Global Consciousness' Used to Be Twitter — Now It's Something Else Dorsey recently left Bluesky, an X rival he helped found.
By Sherin Shibu Edited by Melissa Malamut
Key Takeaways
- Jack Dorsey is the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, now X.
- He wrote that he thinks corporate AI models have now become the "closest form of global consciousness."
Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, now X, no longer thinks the platform he helped build is the "closest form of global consciousness."
Weeks after leaving the board of Bluesky, an X rival he helped found and fund, and publicly praising X as "freedom technology," Dorsey shared a new post on X revising an opinion he shared nearly a decade ago — that Twitter was the closest form of global consciousness.
i once thought twitter was the closest form of global consciousness.
— jack (@jack) May 22, 2024
now it seems the corporate ai models have become that. they have far more access to public and private thoughts and questions. https://t.co/HGUbJZfzF9
Dorsey voiced the opinion that X was the "closest thing" the world had "to a global consciousness" in 2015 and again in 2022.
"[Now] it seems the corporate [AI] models have become that," Dorsey wrote on Wednesday.
Related: Jack Dorsey Explains Bluesky Exit: 'Literally Repeating All the Mistakes We Made' at Twitter
Some X users pushed back, with one writing that AI doesn't have an "alive" global consciousness like X. Dorsey responded by saying AI likely has more information that's collected in a timelier manner; it's just not as public as X.
Jack Dorsey. Credit: Cole Burston/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Corporate AI models may indeed have greater access to "public and private thoughts and questions," as Dorsey put it.
Related: Jack Dorsey Announces His Departure from Bluesky on X
Big AI players, such as Google and OpenAI, have made deals recently with user forum sites like Reddit and bigger publishing companies like The Financial Times to train AI models.
At the same time, AI safety, accuracy, and training data have become a concern for users.
On the accuracy side, Google started putting AI summaries on top of search results for its 250 million-plus monthly U.S. audience.
Multiple users took to social media this week to note that the new technology is getting important information wrong, and drawing from faulty sources.
AI safety has also come into question recently: Two OpenAI leaders in charge of AI safety left the tech company last week, with one writing that he left because "over the past years, safety culture and processes have taken a backseat to shiny products."
OpenAI has since dissolved the team.
The company also paused the rollout of an AI voice that sounded "eerily similar" to Scarlett Johansson's on Monday after Johansson released a public statement.
Related: OpenAI Resignations: How Do We Prevent AI From Going Rogue?
