On Wednesday, Elon Musk declared the establishment of a new venture centered on artificial intelligence, after hinting at developing a competitor to ChatGPT for several months.
The company, named xAI, launched a website and a workforce comprising a dozen staff. Musk will oversee the new venture, as per the website, and it “will work closely with X (Twitter), Tesla, and other companies to make progress towards our mission.”
“The goal of xAI is to understand the true nature of the universe,” the website affirms, replicating the wording Musk has previously used to articulate his AI goals.
Musk was an initial supporter of OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, but subsequently critiqued the firm for integrating safeguards designed to inhibit the popular chatbot from generating biased or misogynistic responses.
“The danger of training AI to be woke – in other words, lie – is deadly,” Musk posted on Twitter in December, replying to a Twitter user who inquired if the CEO of OpenAI could “turn off the woke settings” on ChatGPT.
In a conversation with then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson in April, Musk hinted at plans for his upcoming AI project.
“We’re going to start something which I call TruthGPT,” he claimed, characterizing it as a “maximum truth-seeking AI” that “cares about understanding the universe.”
The unveiling of Musk’s new venture happens months after he expressed concern in an interview that AI has the potential to trigger “civilization destruction,” and joined fellow tech executives in advocating for a halt in an “out of control” AI competition.
Limited additional information regarding the company’s mission was available right away, though the website implies they are actively seeking staff. Currently, all dozen staff members listed on the website appear to be males.
Musk’s disclosure of his latest project arrives at a delicate time for him.
Twitter, which he purchased for $44 billion in October, is now facing an unclear future after Meta released a competing app named Threads.
Meta’s app surpassed 100 million registrations in less than a week. Concurrently, there have been several reports of decreasing Twitter usage.
The turmoil at Twitter follows months of Musk creating tension with some users and advertisers by reducing staff, implementing controversial policy amendments, and making several inflammatory comments.
Apart from Twitter, Musk operates several other businesses, such as Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and The Boring Company.
