Elon Musk’s venture into artificial intelligence, xAI, is set to launch its inaugural AI model to a specific audience this Saturday, as revealed by the billionaire and CEO of Tesla (TSLA.O) on Friday.
This development occurs almost a year following the widespread fascination and subsequent adoption of generative AI technology sparked by OpenAI’s ChatGPT, capturing the interest of both businesses and users worldwide.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, takes a moment of pause during a discussion with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London, United Kingdom, on Thursday, November 2, 2023.
Elon Musk co-founded OpenAI, the entity responsible for ChatGPT, back in 2015, but he relinquished his position on the company’s board in 2018.
“In certain crucial aspects, the new xAI model represents the pinnacle of current technology,” he shared on his X social media platform.
“Once it transitions from its initial beta phase, xAI’s Grok system will be accessible to all subscribers of X Premium+,” Musk announced.
As soon as it’s out of early beta, xAI’s Grok system will be available to all X Premium+ subscribers
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2023
X, previously recognized as Twitter, introduced a pair of fresh subscription offerings last week. This includes a Premium+ tier at $16 per month, catering to users who prefer an ad-free browsing experience, alongside a standard tier available at a monthly fee of $3.
The billionaire, who has expressed concerns about the artificial intelligence endeavors of major technology companies and what he describes as censorship, announced earlier this year his intention to create an AI system focused on seeking maximum truth, aiming to comprehend the fundamental principles of the universe in competition with Google’s Bard and Microsoft’s Bing AI.
The xAI project, initiated in July, is staffed by experts from Google’s DeepMind, the parent company of Windows, and other leading AI research organizations.
While X and xAI maintain their distinct identities, they maintain a strong collaborative relationship. xAI also engages in partnerships with Tesla and various other corporations.
Larry Ellison, a co-founder of Oracle (ORCL.N) and a self-proclaimed close associate of Musk, announced in September that xAI had entered into an agreement to develop its AI model using Oracle’s cloud infrastructure.
(Reporting by Akash Sriram and Mrinmay Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and William Mallard)
