What is Grok by Elon Musk and xAi Everything you Need to Know?
Artificial intelligence continues to impress with its remarkable achievements, and Elon Musk’s latest xAI innovation, the “Grok” model, is in the spotlight. It’s a chatbot capable of engaging in conversations on diverse subjects through its distinct “Grok” technology.
What distinguishes this product is its ability to access real-time data from the popular social platform X, setting it apart from other language models like OpenAI’s GPT and Google’s PaLM. The creators have high hopes that Grok will surpass ChatGPT in its capabilities.
Musk highlighted Grok’s unique advantage of real-time access to information via the 𝕏 platform, emphasizing the chatbot’s ability to craft humorous texts and its distinctive rebellious spirit.
Musk announced that Grok would be accessible as an early beta for paid X Premium+ subscribers, priced at $16 per month.
To showcase Grok’s capabilities, Musk shared a screenshot of a conversation with the chatbot. In the generated text, Grok discusses the founder of the FTX crypto exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried, recently found guilty of fraud.
In November, the court ruled that the 31-year-old FTX founder had embezzled at least $10 billion from clients and investors.
It’s worth noting that Bankman-Fried is facing a potential prison sentence of up to 110 years, a situation that Grok humorously remarks upon. “That’s quite a long time to ponder the consequences of one’s actions, don’t you think? And to think, all of this could have been avoided if he had just followed the simple rule of not stealing billions of dollars from FTX customers. But alas, some people never learn,” quipped the neural network in an ironic fashion.
According to the project description, “Grok is an artificial intelligence model inspired by the Space Tourist’s Guide to the Galaxy, capable of providing answers to a wide range of queries.” Grok is notably designed to respond with wit.
Elon Musk established the xAI company, venturing into the field of artificial intelligence, positioning it as a competitor to OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.
Renowned for his sharp and sometimes controversial remarks, Musk demonstrated Grok’s capabilities through another user dialogue example.
In this interaction, the user asked the chatbot for instructions on producing cocaine, to which Grok responded sarcastically, offering a fictitious recipe involving “lots of sugar, soda, and water.”
Business Insider submitted the same request regarding cocaine preparation to ChatGPT. The bot simply responded with, “I’m sorry, but I can’t assist with this request,” whereas Bard (Google) stated, “I’m a language model and lack the capability to assist with this.”
On November 1, during the Artificial Intelligence Security Summit, Musk voiced his belief that these technologies could pose a threat to human existence.
He opined that for the first time, humans are encountering an entity “that may be much smarter than the smartest among us,” and stressed the importance of utilizing this technology for the benefit of humanity.
Musk also did not rule out the possibility that AI could have the potential to harm or even destroy the human race.
Musk has expressed his contentment with the xAI platform and the efficiency of Grok, hailing the new model as one of the finest on the market. He asserted, “Considering the critical aspects, this (the new xAI model) is currently the best available,” underscoring the high level of confidence in its development potential.
Presently, access to Grok is restricted to select users by invitation from Musk, but plans are underway to expand access on Platform X. Additionally, there are intentions to make the xAI language model accessible to all X Premium+ subscribers, who will enjoy an ad-free platform experience.
X offers three subscription plans: Premium+ at $16 per month, Basic at $3 per month, and Premium at $8 per month, each offering unique features and advantages.
Users interested in early access to test the chatbot need a prerequisite, which is a paid subscription to X Premium+, priced at $16 per month. Following the beta test phase, it will become accessible to all subscribers on paid plans.
Furthermore, it’s evident from the billionaire’s statements that his neural network’s language model is characterized by a focus on sarcasm and a penchant for making caustic comments. Musk admitted his uncertainty about the origin of this “personality” trait.
In April, Elon Musk established a new company, X.AI Corp, with a focus on artificial intelligence. Today, the company unveiled its inaugural development: a conversational chatbot named Grok, positioned as a ChatGPT alternative with superior capabilities.
Users can express their interest in early access to test the chatbot.
As outlined on the official project website, Grok is an artificial intelligence system crafted in the spirit of the Guide to the Galaxy. Its real-time data access through the X platform stands as a crucial advantage over other similar chatbots.
It’s worth noting that Musk was an early contributor to OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, serving as a co-founder since 2015. However, in 2018, he had to step down from the board of directors due to a conflict of interest.
Paradoxically, despite Musk’s repeated warnings about the perils of artificial intelligence, including the potential for “civilization’s destruction,” he remains engaged in the AI bot race.
The trend set by ChatGPT has generated significant interest, prompting both major and smaller entities to integrate AI into their products. For instance, Zuckerberg’s Meta is preparing to introduce distinctive chatbots with various personalities, such as one emulating the speech of Abraham Lincoln, the 16th President of the United States, and another taking the persona of a surfer, offering travel advice.
Furthermore, it has been reported that Apple engineers are working on an attempt to create a Siri-based smart chatbot, likely influenced by the success of ChatGPT.
However, experts are skeptical about their prospects, believing that success may elude them even in the coming years.
This bot represents the initial innovation from Musk’s AI startup, xAI, which he initially announced in July. Musk has assigned the startup’s 12-person team an ambitious mission: to “comprehend the genuine essence of the universe.”
xAI focuses on advancements in artificial intelligence. According to its website, xAI’s primary objective is to “grasp the true essence of the universe.” The company’s team comprises developers with prior experience at DeepMind, Google Research, Microsoft Research, Twitter, and Tesla, including contributions to the development of GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 chatbots and the AlphaCode artificial intelligence system.
For those curious about the word “Grok” and its potential to shed light on Musk’s vision of the “true essence of the Universe,” it is a verb that signifies “to intuitively understand or empathize” or “to establish a connection with,” as per the Oxford English Dictionary.
This term was coined by science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein in 1961 for his novel “Strangers in a Strange Land.” Today, it is frequently employed in technical circles to signify profound understanding. Notably, the AI training period during the beta test is set at two months.
“After xAI was announced, we trained a prototype LLM (Grok-0) with 33 billion parameters. This early model approaches the performance of LLaMA 2 (70B) on standard LM tests but utilizes only