Elon Musk Launches New AI Company xAI

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Facts

  • Elon Musk announced Wednesday the launch of his new artificial intelligence (AI) company called xAI. The company, whose members include alumni of DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft Research, Twitter, and Tesla, says its aim is to "understand the true nature of the universe."1
  • This comes after Musk said in May, "There should be a significant third horse in the race here," referencing the fact that the only two major players in the field are Microsoft and Google. He was also previously among several scientists and experts calling for a six-month pause on advanced AI development to provide time for the industry to implement safety measures.2
  • According to the company's website, people will be able to listen to the xAI team during a discussion with US Reps. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) and Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) on Twitter Spaces on Wednesday at 7 pm EDT.3
  • The website also states that xAI's engineers have worked on projects "including AlphaStar…GPT-3.5, and GPT-4," with director of the Center for AI Safety Dan Hendrycks slated to be a company advisor.4
  • Musk registered X.AI Corp. in Nevada in March, with himself as the director and Jared Birchall, the managing director of Musk’s family office, as a secretary. It was also reported in April that the billionaire had acquired thousands of high-powered GPU processors from Nvidia for the venture.4
  • This isn't Musk's first AI rodeo, having co-founded Open-AI in 2015 before leaving due to a conflict of interest with Tesla. He has also previously criticized OpenAI and floated the idea of creating something called "TruthGPT."5

Sources: 1CNBC, 2Wall Street Journal, 3The Hill, 4New York Post, and 5Verge.

Narratives

  • Narrative A, as provided by New York Times. Elon Musk's relationship with AI is complicated and his true motives are unknown. On the one hand, he warns about the dangers of the technology, while on the other, he works to incorporate it into Twitter and even build his own company to rival ChatGPT. Another worry is Musk's goal of open-sourcing AI software, a move that experts say could lead to the technology falling into the wrong hands.
  • Narrative B, as provided by Wall Street Journal. Musk has called for slowing the development of AI and researching its potential harm to society, but, unfortunately, those leading the industry have chosen not to heed his warnings. Having seen what AI can be used for when in the wrong hands — such as ChatGPT dishing out biased and politically correct answers — he wants to create a program that pursues the truth above all else. Building an unbiased system seems like a far more positive pursuit than what we currently have.

Predictions