Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI is preparing to unveil its first AI model on Saturday, November 4th, the tech mogul and CEO of Tesla announced on Friday. This launch comes almost a year after OpenAI’s conversational AI ChatGPT captivated businesses and users globally, catalyzing widespread adoption of generative AI.
Musk co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but stepped down from the company’s board in 2018.
Regarding xAI’s forthcoming model, he stated on Friday that “in some important respects, it is the best that currently exists.” The billionaire, who has been critical of Big Tech’s AI efforts and censorship, said earlier this year he aimed to launch a “maximum truth-seeking” AI to understand the nature of the universe — rivaling Google’s Bard and Microsoft’s Bing AI.
The experts behind xAI, founded in July 2022, hail from esteemed AI research groups, including Google’s DeepMind, Microsoft, and other top firms. While Musk’s social media company X (formerly Twitter) and xAI are separate entities, they collaborate closely. XAI also works with Tesla and other Musk ventures.
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, a close friend of Musk’s, said in September that xAI had contracted to train its AI on Oracle’s cloud platform. This highlights xAI’s vast computational needs, given Oracle’s powerful cloud infrastructure.
xAI’s upcoming model seems poised to shake up the AI landscape.
Musk hinted its capabilities surpass existing models like GPT-3 and Google’s LaMDA. His enormous resources and top AI talent could enable xAI to leapfrog current leaders. However, some analysts are skeptical of Musk’s lofty claims about the startup’s nascent technology.
The Saturday launch will likely be an initial test with limited availability. The wider release would most probably, at least in part, depend on robust safety testing to avoid potential dangers of the AI model. Musk aims for xAI to someday philosophically align with human values. But this advanced goal could be far off.
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