Elon Musk announces formation of his new company xAI to 'understand the universe'
Elon Musk's new AI company, xAI, is aimed at understanding the universe, with team members from DeepMind and OpenAI, as they plan to compete with leading chatbot developers and address AI safety concerns.
FollowElon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX, and owner of Twitter, on Wednesday announced the launch of a new AI company called xAI. The company aims to explore and understand the true nature of the universe. Musk and his team will provide further details in a live Twitter Spaces chat scheduled for Friday.
The xAI team consists of experienced individuals who have previously worked at renowned organizations such as DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft Research, and Tesla. They have been involved in notable projects including DeepMind's AlphaCode and OpenAI's GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 chatbots. With xAI, Musk appears to be positioning the company to compete with established players like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, who have developed leading chatbots such as ChatGPT, Bard, and Claude.
Reports about the startup initially surfaced in April, indicating that Musk had secured thousands of GPU processors from Nvidia to potentially power a large language model. In the same month, Musk discussed his plans for another AI tool called "TruthGPT" during an interview on Fox News Channel, expressing concern that existing AI companies prioritize politically correct systems.
Dan Hendrycks, the executive director of the Center for AI Safety, will serve as an advisor to xAI. The Center for AI Safety is a San Francisco-based nonprofit that emphasized the need to address the risks of AI in a letter signed by tech leaders. However, this letter received criticism from some academics and ethicists who believe that focusing excessively on AI's future threats diverts attention from the harm caused by algorithms to marginalized communities in the present.
According to reports, Musk incorporated xAI in Nevada in March. Previously, he temporarily changed the name of Twitter to "X Corp" in certain financial filings. However, xAI's website clarifies that it is separate from X Corp and highlights its intention to collaborate closely with X (Twitter), Tesla, and other companies to advance their mission.
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