xAI, Elon Musk’s AI development company, will this week open source the Grok GenAI chatbot. This would counterbalance OpenAI, which, according to the eccentric tech entrepreneur, makes its tools “closed sourced” again.
By making Grok open source, Elon Musk may want to debate further whether GenAI chatbots should be open source and accessible to everyone at all times. He has long been an avid supporter of open source. For example, code and algorithms for his Tesla cars and the social media platform X are generally available.
xAI is not the only provider that (will) open-source GenAI tools. European Mistral AI and Meta Platforms have also recently made code for their GenAI chatbots publicly available.
Only a paid version of Grok so far
xAI, Elon Musk’s own AI developer, introduced the GenAI tool Grok last year via a subscription model. Users have to pay -until now- $16 per month monthly to use this chatbot, as part of their X Premium subscription.
The chatbot is fed in real-time by all messages published on X. As a result, responses may be unreliable or have a “negative” tone. In addition, the GenAI chatbot would answer less general questions than its various competitors.
According to Musk, the Grok chatbot’s intention is precisely that it can be biased and sarcastic. “I have no idea who could have guided it this way,” he said on X.
Tip: X increasingly attractive to business audiences, but will they return?
Lawsuit against OpenAI
Making Grok open source is the latest development in Elon Musk’s recent campaign against OpenAI, despite the fact that he is a co-founder of this AI developer.
The billionaire recently sued the AI developer for making its GenAI tooling less and less open source. In doing so, OpenAI would increasingly focus on maximizing revenue for major shareholder Microsoft, Musk said.
In response to Elon Musk’s allegations, OpenAI revealed that he, in particular, as co-founder, was pushing for a larger budget for the AI developer. This is to compete with Google, among other things. Getting revenue from the various GenAI tools is one way to increase this budget.
In addition, Musk would have slowly withdrawn a previously guaranteed $1 billion investment in the AI developer. He is also said to have sought to fully control OpenAI and even place it under Tesla’s umbrella over time.
Also read: Musk sues OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman for ‘abandoning mission’
18 hours ago
