Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, is working to make its chatbot, Grok, open-source, in a move set to rival the widely-used ChatGPT developed by OpenAI.
The announcement was made by Musk on Monday, with the release expected to happen sometime this week.
Musk's Plan to Make Grok Open Source
Reuters reports that the decision to open-source Grok comes amid Elon Musk's expressed discomfort with the trajectory of AI development, particularly within his own company, Tesla.
Musk had previously stated that he felt uneasy about growing Tesla into a leader in AI and robotics without having at least 25% voting control of the company.
In case you missed it, Musk's displeasure with the direction of AI development led to a lawsuit against OpenAI and its CEO, Sam Altman. Musk accused them of abandoning the startup's original mission to develop artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity, instead prioritizing profit for its major investors like Microsoft.
Elon Musk Blasts OpenAI
In November, Musk's startup, xAI, launched Grok to a small group of users, aiming to create what Musk termed a "maximum truth-seeking AI."
In his announcement on X to open-source Grok, the billionaire gave some more jabs on OpenAI. In one reply, Elon Musk has labeled OpenAI as "a lie," criticizing the organization's alleged departure from its founding principles.
This sentiment was echoed by Musk's followers, with some suggesting that OpenAI should have maintained a similar stance given the "Open" in its name.
Last year, Musk demanded that OpenAI return to its open-source principles, emphasizing the need for transparency and accountability in AI development. Musk cites OpenAI's refusal to disclose information about their advanced GPT-4 language model based on ChatGPT technology.
"OpenAI was created as an open source (which is why I named it 'Open' AI), nonprofit company to serve as a counterweight to Google, but now it has become a closed source, maximum-profit company effectively controlled by Microsoft," the billionaire wrote on X.
Musk is also now demanding the return of the $44 million he gave to OpenAI - he claims OpenAI solicited the funds under the pretext of remaining a nonprofit research organization.
In addition to the lawsuit, Musk had previously revoked OpenAI's access to Twitter data in December 2022.
OpenAI Responds
In a recent blog post, OpenAI responded to Elon Musk's lawsuit by releasing previous emails indicating Musk's purported plans to merge the company with Tesla to form a for-profit entity.
The emails, which span from 2015 to 2018, revealed Musk's engagement in OpenAI operations as well as his vision for the organization's future.
In response to Musk's lawsuit, OpenAI stated that its mission did not include open-sourcing AGI. The organization stressed its commitment to ensure that AGI benefits all of mankind while also recognizing Musk's early support and accomplishments.
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(Photo : Tech Times Writer John Lopez)
