On Wednesday, Musk announced the launch of a new company, xAI, in an attempt to “understand the true nature of the universe”.
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1679164661869182976?s=20
Musk’s entry into the AI space comes when the entire field of study is undergoing a paradigm shift following the launch of OpenAI’s generative AI chatbot ChatGPT last November.
ETtech answers some key questions about Musk’s latest venture
What is xAI?
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As the name suggests, xAI is an AI company whose goal — according to the company’s website — is to understand the true nature of the universe. The company was incorporated in the US state of Nevada earlier this year. According to a Business Insider report from April, xAI procured about 10,000 graphic processing units (GPUs) — the hardware that forms the backbone of any large-scale AI model. While the source of funding for the company is still unclear, an FT report from April suggests that Musk is trying to woo investors at Tesla and SpaceX to raise capital.
Who is working with xAI?
According to the company’s website, it has two prominent names. One is Igor Babuschkin, a researcher who was previously employed with Alphabet’s Deepmind AI unit and was hired by Musk to create a rival to ChatGPT. He has also worked as a member of the technical staff at OpenAI.
The other is Dan Hendrycks, an advisor, who currently serves as the director of the Center for AI Safety, an organisation that has voiced concerns about the safety of AI.
In May, it released a statement with signatures from AI scientists, experts, and CEOs stating that “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war”.
Is this Musk’s first tryst with AI?
No, Musk cofounded OpenAI in 2015 with Sam Altman and a few others only to leave it in 2018 citing a conflict of interest since he was working with Tesla.
However, according to a report from the news website Semafor earlier this year, Musk tried to take control of the startup in 2018, failing which he quit the firm and also reneged on his massive pledged donation of $1 billion.
Though Musk said the “venture had fallen fatally behind Google”, Altman and other founders were unfazed.
Since the launch of ChatGPT last year and Microsoft’s reported $10-billion investment in OpenAI, Musk has been critical of Altman and even suggested that OpenAI has given a majority of its controlling stake to Microsoft in exchange for the investment.
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