Elon Musk Announces New AI Startup

Source: BBC News - Link to Article by James Clayton

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has announced the formation of a new artificial intelligence startup named xAI. The company includes engineers who previously worked with AI powerhouses like OpenAI and Google.

Musk has been vocal about his belief that developments in AI should be paused and the sector needs regulation. He expressed that the startup was created to “understand reality”.

However, it remains unclear how much funding the company has, its specific objectives, and the kind of AI it intends to focus on. According to the company’s website, the goal of xAI is to “understand the true nature of the universe”.

xAI is planning a Twitter Spaces chat on Friday, which might reveal more details about its goals.

Musk was one of the original backers of OpenAI, the organization that developed the popular language model, ChatGPT. Despite its popularity and uses like assisting students with homework, the AI has been a subject of controversy. Musk criticized ChatGPT for having a liberal bias, stating on Twitter, “What we need is TruthGPT.”

He also expressed dissatisfaction with the operation of ChatGPT and its close relationship with Microsoft. Musk said in a CNBC interview, “It does seem weird that something can be a nonprofit, open source and somehow transform itself into a for-profit, closed source.”

In March, Musk signed an open letter advocating for a pause to “Giant AI Experiments”, gathering around 33,000 signatures to date.

In an April interview with the BBC, Musk shared that he has been concerned about AI safety for over a decade. He advocated for the establishment of a regulatory body overseeing AI to ensure public safety.

Musk also clashed with AI companies over the data they use to train chatbots. These software learn human interaction by scraping large amounts of data from various sources.

Musk believes that Twitter’s data is extensively scraped for this purpose and should be adequately compensated. After purchasing the microblogging platform in a billion-dollar deal, Musk initiated sweeping changes that led to many high-profile departures from the platform.

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