Tension remains between OpenAI, led by Sam Altman, and xAI, owned by Elon Musk. As Index previously reported, the Tesla leader has filed a lawsuit against the OpenAI startup that created ChatGPT and its CEO, Sam Altman, citing breach of contract. According to Elon Musk, the company has abandoned its original mission and is not using the development of artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity, but for profit. At the same time, the court was asked to prevent the dissemination of data and technologies, as well as the use of the developed software, and the associated profit.
Incidentally, Musk himself was a member of the founding team of OpenAI in 2015, but left the company three years later, in 2018, as he said he wanted to focus his time, money and energy on other areas.
Of course, OpenAI was also informed of the lawsuit, and in response they released internal emails explaining that Tesla's CEO at the time was very supportive of the plan to create a for-profit company, and that by merging with Tesla, the combined company “becomes a cash cow.” Screenshots of the messages started spreading like wildfire on social media. Musk caught himself and did the unexpected: he made his development of xAI and Grok, which he leads, a mostly chatbot and AI-based assistant similar to ChatGPT, open source. ., i.e. accessible to anyone who conforms to.
It may not be the best decision
The move could give the public free access to experiment with the code behind the technology, and also aligns xAI with companies like Meta or France's Mistral, both of which have open-source AI models. It's also interesting that in February, Google also released an AI model called Gemma, which third-party developers can adapt to their own needs — however, they didn't give access to Gemini in particular. Musk's move stirred things up badly, according to Reuters. For example, technology investors, including OpenAI backer Vinod Khosla and Marc Andreessen, co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, have been discussing open source coding for AI ever since. .
It is important to note that while open source technology can indeed help accelerate innovation, some experts believe that these AI models could also be used by terrorists, for example to produce chemical weapons, or even to develop conscious superintelligence beyond human control. . Interestingly, at last year's AI Safety Summit in the UK, Musk said he wanted to create a “third-party” watchdog that would independently monitor companies developing AI and sound the alarm if concerns were raised — but nothing has materialized so far. .
It is not yet known what the future will hold
xAI was launched by Musk in 2023, while he was looking for an alternative to OpenAI and Google's developments. According to the Tesla leader, the goal of xAI is to create maximum truth-seeking AI, and Grok was presented as a first step in December 2023 – however, for now, only X Premium+ subscribers can use it. It's impossible to predict exactly what will happen to Grok in the future, but its popularity is sure to grow by leaps and bounds if its source code is made public; At least among developers.
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