Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, is set to be open-sourced. Following a lawsuit against OpenAI and criticism of the Microsoft-backed startup for straying from its open-source roots, the entrepreneur announced Grok, the chatbot that competes with ChatGPT, this week.
xAI unveiled Grok last year, equipping it with features such as access to up-to-date information and unfiltered perspectives. Customers can access the service by subscribing to X for $16 per month.
Elon Musk, without providing further details on which parts of Grok he intended to make open-source, co-founded OpenAI with Sam Altman almost ten years ago to challenge Google’s leading position in artificial intelligence. According to Musk, OpenAI was supposed to make its technology freely available to the public, but it has now become closed-source and is prioritizing profits for Microsoft. Check out OpenAI’s response here.
OpenAI’s website still states its commitment to ensuring that AGI benefits all of humanity. According to Musk’s lawsuit, OpenAI has actually become a closed-source subsidiary of Microsoft, the world’s largest technology company.
The lawsuit has sparked a discussion among numerous technologists and investors regarding the advantages of open-source AI. Vinod Khosla, whose firm is one of the earliest supporters of OpenAI, described Musk’s legal action as a significant distraction from the objectives of achieving AGI and its advantages.
Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, has accused Khosla of attempting to ban open-source research in AI. “Every significant new technology that advances human well-being is often met with exaggerated moral concerns,” stated Andreessen. His firm, a16z, has supported Mistral, an open-source chatbot. “This is merely the most recent.
Announcing the upcoming open-sourcing of Grok is expected to position xAI alongside other prominent companies like Meta and Mistral, who have already made their chatbot codes available to the public.
Musk has always supported open-source initiatives. Another company he oversees, Tesla, has made many of its patents open-source. “Tesla will not sue anyone who wants to use our technology in good faith,” Musk stated in 2014. X, previously recognized as Twitter, also made some of its algorithms open-source last year.
On Monday, he reiterated his critique of the Altman-led firm by stating, “OpenAI is not truthful.”
