Elon Musk has made an announcement regarding his artificial intelligence (AI) model, Grok. He revealed that Grok will now be open source, coinciding with the ongoing lawsuit against rival AI chatbot developer, OpenAI. Musk shared this news in a post on March 11. Although he did not provide further details about his plans for making Grok open source, the response from users was overwhelmingly positive, with many praising Musk for his decision. One user even suggested that OpenAI should do the same, to which Musk responded by calling OpenAI a lie.
The lawsuit, which was filed by Musk on February 29, accuses OpenAI of breaching the agreement that was established when the organization was founded as a nonprofit entity. Musk argues that OpenAI’s partnership with Microsoft contradicts the original principles of the nonprofit agreement, which aimed to advance open-source artificial general intelligence (AGI) for the greater good of humanity. It has been reported that Microsoft invested nearly $3 billion in OpenAI by the end of 2023. In the lawsuit, Musk demands that OpenAI return to its initial open-source principles and seeks an injunction to prevent the for-profit exploitation of AGI technology. However, shortly after the lawsuit was filed, OpenAI executives released a joint statement that included emails from Musk, seemingly showing his agreement with the company’s transformation into a for-profit entity.
Following the filing of the lawsuit, OpenAI has reinstated Sam Altman as its CEO. Altman had previously been fired and then re-hired in November 2023. The board of OpenAI admitted that they underestimated the impact of Altman’s departure on the stability of the company. Musk’s decision to make Grok open source aligns with his requests in the lawsuit, as he aims to advance open-source AGI for the betterment of humanity.
Grok, developed by Musk’s company xAI, is an AI chatbot similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. However, Grok has the unique capability to access real-time information through the X social media platform and can provide answers to more controversial questions that other AI systems may reject. To access the chatbot, users must have a verified X account.
In terms of performance, some comparisons suggest that Grok AI, powered by the Grok-1 large language model, surpasses ChatGPT-3.5 but falls slightly short of OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4 model.
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