‘Grok’ is the first AI chatbot from xAI. This company is led by Elon Musk, who was involved with the founding of OpenAI. Can we expect a success story like ChatGPT?
Although Grok is only xAI’s first AI model, the model may appeal to a large group of potential users. Grok owes that to its ties to Elon Musk, who will use his title as owner of social media platform X to bring Grok to X users.
Real-time access to X: advantage or disadvantage?
The AI chatbot has real-time access to all of X’s information, which Musk says gives it a “huge advantage over other models”. Musk shared this in a post on the social media platform. We would take that statement not all too seriously ourselves. Musk has been scrutinized in the past for not thoroughly addressing the spread of fake news and not being able to block bots on X. Therefore, a response that arises from this information is not guaranteed to be factually correct.
Furthermore, he seems to say with some pride that the model is biased and often comes off as sarcastic. “I have no idea who could have guided it this way,” he adds mockingly. That the model is not objective, however, strikes us as a major drawback to Grok versus other models. However, Grok is marketed as a competitor to ChatGPT, OpenAI’s chatbot, which Musk was previously involved with.
Early test version
XAI itself provides more information about the chatbot in a blog. It shows, for example, that Grok is not currently ready to compete with ChatGPT. The use of Grok is at this moment only possible through a “very early” test version. The model is said to have undergone only two months of training.
However, it is clear that the chatbot has features that make the technology unique from what is already currently available. For example, xAI speaks of its ability to answer less general questions: “It will also answer tough questions that are rejected by most other AI systems.”
The positives of Grok emerge when benchmark tests are discussed. “Grok-1 showed strong results and outperformed all other models in its computing class, including ChatGPT-3.5 and Inflection-1.” GPT-4, the model on which the latest versions of OpenAI’s chatbot run, could not be outperformed by Grok.
Promoting X-subscription
Grok still appears to be deployed for the social media platform X as a method of attracting additional users to its paid subscriptions. X shed light on these subscriptions last week. It is mainly a system in which users who pay the most money are the most likely to get noticed on X.
Read more: X adds two paid subscriptions: those who pay are seen
Grok will be added to the most expensive subscription of sixteen euros per month. This will give the formula an additional service, although it is not yet clear exactly when the linking will follow. During the testing phase, the chatbot will be accessible to another group of users. After all, Musk can hardly make X users pay for an unstable version of Grok. The test version is available to X users who register.
With the known information, the first product of xAI seems to be mainly a risk to the accuracy and objectivity of AI. Musk himself is already coming out that the chatbot is sarcastic and based. That may produce funny answers, but it will certainly be useless for business use.
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