United Kingdom MPs will summon SpaceX founder Elon Musk before a parliamentary inquiry for his involvement in the UK riots and the rise of false and harmful AI content, the Guardian reported.
Along with billionaire Musk, senior executives from Meta, who runs social media platforms Facebook and Instagram, and TikTok are also expected to be summoned as part of a Commons Science and technology select committee social media inquiry.
This comes after Italian President Sergio Mattarella rebuked Musk after he took to X and posted about Italian court rulings that had hindered Italy’s right-wing government plans to process some asylum-seekers in Albania.
The first hearings are scheduled to take place in the new year, amid increasing concerns that UK online safety laws risk has surged by rapidly advancing technology and the politicisation of platforms such as X.
The MPs are expected to probe the consequences of generative AI, which was used in widely shared images posted on Facebook and X, provoking people to join Islamophobic protests after the killing of three school girls in Southport in August.
Moreover, they will also investigate Silicon Valley business models that “encourage the spread of content that can mislead and harm”.
“[Musk] has very strong views on multiple aspects of this,” Chi Onwurah, the Labour chair of the select committee said. “I would certainly like the opportunity to cross-examine him to see … how he reconciles his promotion of freedom of expression with his promotion of pure disinformation.”
Musk was disappointed and furious when he was not invited to a UK government international investment summit in September.
“I’d like to make up for that by inviting him to attend,” Onwurah told the Guardian.
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This week, former Labour minister Peter Mandelson called for an end to the “feud” between Musk and the UK government.
“He is a sort of technological, industrial, commercial phenomenon,” Mandelson told the How to Win an Election podcast. “And it would be unwise, in my view, for Britain to ignore him. You cannot pursue these feuds.”
Meanwhile, X did not respond when they were asked if Musk would testify in the UK, although it appears unlikely, the Guardian reported.
(With inputs from agencies)