Elon Musk’s AI startup xAI will open-source Grok, its chatbot rivaling ChatGPT, this week, he mentioned, days after suing OpenAI and complaining that the Microsoft-backed startup had deviated from its open source roots.
xAI released Grok final yr, arming it with options together with entry to “real-time” info. The service is accessible to prospects paying for X’s $16 month-to-month subscription.
Musk helped co-found OpenAI as a counterweight to Google. However OpenAI, which was required to additionally make its know-how “freely available” to the general public, has change into closed-source and shifted focus to maximizing earnings for Microsoft, Musk alleged within the lawsuit filed late final month. (Learn OpenAI’s response here.)
The lawsuit has additionally ignited a debate amongst many technologists and traders in regards to the deserves of open-source AI. Vinod Khosla, whose agency is among the many earliest backers of OpenAI, termed the lawsuit a “massive distraction from the goals of getting to AGI and its benefits.”
Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, responded to Khosla’s tweet by accusing him of “lobbying to ban open source” analysis in AI. “Every significant new technology that advances human well-being is greeted by a ginned-up moral panic,” he added. “This is just the latest.”
The promise to imminently open-source Grok signifies that xAI will be part of the record of a variety of rising corporations, together with Meta and French startup Mistral, which have revealed the codes of their chatbots to the general public.
Musk has lengthy been a proponent of open supply. Tesla, one other agency he leads, has open-sourced many of its patents. “Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology,” Musk mentioned in 2014. X, previously generally known as Twitter, additionally open sourced some of its algorithms last year.
