By John Ikani
Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, is gearing up to unveil its inaugural AI model to a select few on Saturday, October 4.
The announcement came from the billionaire and Tesla CEO on Friday, October 3.
This significant move follows almost a year since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which revolutionized global business operations and accelerated the adoption of generative AI technology.
OpenAI, the brainchild of Elon Musk, debuted ChatGPT in 2015, although he parted ways with the company’s board in 2018.
Musk shared his perspective on xAI’s groundbreaking model on his social media platform, X. “In some critical aspects, it (xAI’s new model) stands as the current best,” Musk affirmed. He also revealed that once it exits the early beta stage, xAI’s Grok system will become accessible to all X Premium+ subscribers.
Elon Musk has consistently expressed reservations about the AI efforts undertaken by major tech giants. Earlier this year, he unveiled plans to introduce a truth-seeking AI that seeks to comprehend the workings of the universe and compete with Microsoft’s Bing AI and Google’s Bard.
The xAI team, launched in July, boasts experts who’ve honed their skills at Google’s DeepMind and other prominent AI research institutions.
Despite being separate entities, X and xAI have maintained a close working relationship. xAI has also collaborated with Tesla and other corporations.
In September, Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle and a close associate of Musk, disclosed that xAI had signed a contract to train its AI model on Oracle’s cloud platform.
During a recent conversation with the United Kingdom Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Musk offered a glimpse of the future, foreseeing an “age of abundance” driven by AI, resulting in a “universal high income.” However, he sounded a note of caution about “humanoid robots” that could pursue humans.
Musk asserted that jobs would endure primarily for those seeking “personal satisfaction.” He described AI as a “magic genie” capable of granting humans their desires.
He also stressed the need for a physical off switch, warning of humanoid robots’ relentless pursuit: “A humanoid robot can basically chase you anywhere. It’s something we should be quite concerned about. If a robot can follow you anywhere, what if they get a software update one day, and they’re not so friendly any more?” he cautioned.
