Elon Musk's xAI to Open-Source Chatbot Grok
March 11, 2024 By Raulf Hernes
(Image Credit Google)
Elon Musk's artificial intelligence firm, xAI, is going to make its chatbot Grok available as open-source software this week, which is a move that is likely to rekindle the discussion about open-source AI. This follows a lawsuit that Musk filed against OpenAI, a co-founded AI research facility, alleging that they had abandoned their open-source beginnings in favour of a Microsoft-backed, profit-driven closed-source approach.
With real-time information accessible, Grok, xAI's response to OpenAI's well-liked ChatGPT, promises to provide users with a possibly more engaging and educational chat experience. Although Grok is now exclusive to Musk's social media site X paid users, anybody can access, alter, and enhance its features by opening the source code.
This choice places xAI in the context of a rising technological movement. Open-source chatbots have also been adopted by organizations like Meta and Mistral, and Musk has long supported open-source ideas. For example, Tesla has released a large number of their patents for free.
Experts are debating the lawsuit against OpenAI in a contentious manner. An early supporter of OpenAI, Vinod Khosla, sees the case as a diversion from the goal of creating Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), a theoretical AI that is able to reason on par with humans. He makes the case for working together more.
Investor Marc Andreessen, meanwhile, retorted that Khosla is exaggerating the threats to national security. He compares the current controversy to earlier worries about emerging technologies and thinks that open-source research encourages innovation.
While some, like Khosla, are concerned about threats from overseas actors, Musk draws attention to the possibility of intellectual property theft. Whatever the worries, xAI's choice to provide its source code as open-source Grok challenges the Microsoft and OpenAI-supported closed-source AI paradigm. It will be fascinating to witness how this fight of titans influences the future of AI development.
