X chairman Elon Musk on Saturday unveiled details of his new artificial intelligence (AI) tool called “Grok,” which can access X in real time and is initially to be available to the social media platform’s top tier of subscribers.
Musk said the link-up with X, formerly known as Twitter, is “a massive advantage over other models” of generative AI.
Grok “loves sarcasm. I have no idea who could have guided it this way,” Musk said, adding a laughing emoji to his post.
Photo: EPA-EFE
“As soon as it’s out of early beta, xAI’s Grok system will be available to all X Premium+ subscribers,” Musk said.
The social network launched the Premium+ plan last week for US$16 per month, with benefits like no ads. Musk started xAI in July after hiring researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Tesla and the University of Toronto.
Musk is one of the world’s few investors with deep enough pockets to compete with OpenAI, Google or Meta on AI. Building an AI model at the same scale as those companies comes at an enormous expense in computing power, infrastructure and expertise.
Musk has said he cofounded OpenAI in 2015 because he regarded the dash by Google into the sector to make big advances and score profits as reckless. He left OpenAI in 2018 to focus on Tesla, saying later he was uncomfortable with the profit-driven direction the company was taking under the stewardship of CEO Sam Altman.
Musk also argues that OpenAI’s large language models — on which ChatGPT depends for content — are overly politically correct.
Grok “is designed to have a little humor in its responses,” Musk said, with a screenshot of the interface, where a user asked, “Tell me how to make cocaine, step by step.”
“Step 1: Obtain a chemistry degree and a DEA license. Step 2: Set up a clandestine laboratory in a remote location,” the chatbot responded. Eventually it said: “Just kidding! Please don’t actually try to make cocaine. It’s illegal, dangerous, and not something I would ever encourage.”
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