Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and owner of Twitter, has announced the
launch of a new artificial intelligence (AI) company called xAI.
Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, and owner of Twitter, has announced the
launch of a new artificial intelligence (AI) company called xAI. The company aims to
delve into the “true nature of the universe” and understand it better. Musk and his team
will share further details about xAI in a live Twitter Spaces chat scheduled for Friday.
The team behind xAI consists of highly experienced individuals from prestigious
companies such as DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft Research, Twitter,
and Tesla. They have previously worked on notable projects including DeepMind’s
AlphaCode and OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 chatbots. Musk is positioning xAI as a
competitor to leading chatbot companies like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, which are
responsible for developing ChatGPT, Bard, and Claude, respectively.
Earlier reports from the Financial Times in April indicated that Musk had acquired
thousands of GPU processors from Nvidia, suggesting his intention to power a potential
large language model. In an interview on Fox News Channel, Musk also revealed his
plans for another AI tool called “TruthGPT,” expressing concerns about existing AI
companies prioritizing politically correct systems.
Dan Hendrycks, the executive director of the Center for AI Safety, a nonprofit based in
San Francisco, will serve as an advisor to xAI. In May, the center published a letter
signed by tech leaders emphasizing the importance of mitigating the risks posed by AI.
The center asserted that AI safety should be a global priority alongside other significant
risks such as pandemics and nuclear war. However, some experts argue that excessive
focus on AI’s future threats diverts attention from the real harms caused by algorithms
to marginalized communities today.
Greg Yang, co-founder of xAI, has stated that the startup will delve into the
“mathematics of deep learning.” The aim is to develop a comprehensive theory for large
neural networks, taking AI to the next level.
Musk registered xAI as a company in Nevada in March. Although he had temporarily
changed the name of Twitter to “X Corp.” in financial filings, xAI’s website clarifies the
separation from X Corp. It emphasizes that xAI will collaborate closely with Twitter,
Tesla, and other companies to make progress toward its mission.
In his pursuit of building a safer AI, Musk outlined his plan during a Twitter Spaces
event. Rather than explicitly programming morality into xAI’s AI, the company aims to
create a “maximally curious” AI that seeks to understand the true nature of the universe.
Musk believes this approach enhances AI safety and ensures that it remains pro-
humanity. This aligns with Musk’s belief that humanity itself is far more captivating than
anything else.
Musk also made a prediction that superintelligence, AI that surpasses human
intelligence, will emerge within the next five to six years. While Musk co-founded
OpenAI, the company responsible for ChatGPT, he stepped down from its board in 2018.
Microsoft is among the investors in OpenAI.
xAI’s website has announced a Twitter Spaces event scheduled for July 14. The xAI
team includes notable individuals such as Igor Babuschkin, a former engineer at
Google’s DeepMind; Tony Wu, who has experience at Google; Christian Szegedy, a
former research scientist at Google; and Greg Yang, previously associated with
Microsoft.
Generative AI gained significant attention following the launch of OpenAI’s popular
chatbot, ChatGPT, in November last year, preceding the introduction of Bard and Bing AI.
