Elon Musk’s Answer to AI Giants? xAI Chatbot Grok with “Rebellious Streak”

Elon Musk’s new artificial intelligence startup xAI has released its first chatbot technology called Grok, positioning it as a competitor to chatbots from OpenAI, Anthropic, and others.

Keypoints

• Elon Musk’s new AI company xAI has launched its first chatbot called Grok. It is currently in early beta testing and only available to select users.
• Grok is designed to be witty and rebellious, with access to data from X/Twitter to make it more current. It is powered by an AI model called Grok-1.
• In initial testing, Grok performed better than GPT-3.5 on some benchmarks, but lags behind more powerful models like GPT-4.
• Musk said Grok will eventually be released on X for premium subscribers. He is positioning xAI as a competitor to OpenAI, Inflection and Anthropic.
• Musk warned AI could be one of the biggest threats to humanity, yet launched Grok which he says has a “rebellious streak.”
• Grok is inspired by the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Its name means to understand something deeply.
• Musk believes today’s AI is too politically correct. xAI’s goal is to create AI accessible to all political views.
• Musk previously co-founded OpenAI, which created ChatGPT. But he stepped down in 2018.

Grok is currently in early beta testing and only available to a select group of users on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter which Musk now owns. Musk said that eventually Grok will be offered as part of X’s premium subscription service.

The chatbot is designed to have a “witty” and “rebellious” personality, with the ability to understand and respond to questions on virtually any topic. xAI said Grok has access to real-time data from the X platform, giving it an advantage over other AI chatbots.

Announcing Grok!

Grok is an AI modeled after the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, so intended to answer almost anything and, far harder, even suggest what questions to ask!

Grok is designed to answer questions with a bit of wit and has a rebellious streak, so please don’t use…

— xAI (@xai) November 5, 2023

Musk posted examples of Grok’s responses, including a sarcastic reply to a request for a step-by-step cocaine recipe. This highlights Musk’s intent for Grok to not shy away from controversial topics that other AI bots may avoid.

Grok is powered by an AI model called Grok-1. In initial benchmark testing, Grok-1 outperformed GPT-3.5, the model used by chatbot ChatGPT. However, xAI admitted it still lags behind more advanced models like GPT-4 used by OpenAI.

The name Grok comes from the sci-fi novel Stranger in a Strange Land, meaning to understand something deeply or intuitively. xAI said Grok is modeled after the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, reflecting Musk’s futuristic vision.

Musk appears to be positioning xAI and Grok as a more politically neutral player in AI. He previously expressed concerns that AI could be “one of the biggest threats to humanity” if pursued recklessly.

With xAI, Musk aims to create AI that serves all of humanity, not just the politically correct views he believes dominate Big Tech companies like Google, Microsoft and even OpenAI, which he co-founded but left in 2018.

The early beta test of Grok represents the first step in Musk’s grand vision for xAI. It remains to be seen whether it can compete with more mature chatbot technologies as testing expands to more users in the coming months.