Elon Musk Launches xAI, An AI Startup To Challenge Tech Giants
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk on Wednesday officially unveiled his long-teased artificial intelligence startup, xAI, with a mission to develop an alternative to ChatGPT and compete with major technology firms.
Musk, known for his roles as CEO at Tesla, SpaceX, and Twitter owner, has been an outspoken advocate for regulating AI development due to concerns about its potential risks. In a recent Twitter Spaces event, Musk outlined his plan for building a safer AI. Rather than explicitly programming morality, xAI aims to create a "maximally curious" AI, which seeks to understand the true nature of the universe. Musk said that fostering curiosity will enhance AI safety and ultimately make it pro-humanity, as he finds humanity inherently more interesting.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI in 2015 but left its board in 2018, has gathered a team of talented engineers for xAI. Notable members include Igor Babuschkin, a former engineer from Google's DeepMind; Tony Wu, who previously worked at Google; Christian Szegedy, a research scientist at Google; and Greg Yang, formerly of Microsoft.
The team at xAI plans to hold a Twitter Spaces event on 14 July to provide further insights into their vision and approach. Additionally, xAI is actively recruiting experienced engineers and researchers in the San Francisco Bay Area, indicating the company's focus on tapping into the region's talent pool.
Musk's new venture, xAI, is separate from X Corp, but it is expected to collaborate closely with other companies under Musk's leadership, including Twitter and Tesla. While Microsoft is an investor in OpenAI, Musk's xAI seeks to challenge the existing players in the AI space.
Musk's new venture aims to develop a “truth-seeking” AI called TruthGPT to rival Google's Bard and Microsoft's Bing AI, which also attempt to understand the nature of the universe.
xAI has enlisted the expertise of Dan Hendrycks, director of the Center for AI Safety, as an advisor. Hendrycks specialises in addressing the risks associated with AI.
