Musk's xAI to release first AI model to 'select group'

Elon Musk said his new artificial intelligence company would release a new AI model on Saturday to a "select group" of users as he looks to rival industry leaders OpenAI and Google.

The release would be the first from Musk's new startup, xAI, that he launched in July after hiring researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Tesla and the University of Toronto.

"Tomorrow, xAI will release its first AI to a select group. In some important respects, it is the best that currently exists," Musk said Friday on X, his social media platform, formerly known as Twitter.

The Tesla tycoon has expressed conflicting positions on AI in the past.

In a sit-down with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Thursday, Musk compared AI to "a magic genie" that gives you any wishes you want, warning however that such fairy tales rarely end well.

For years, Musk has warned that the generative AI models that power programs such as ChatGPT could one day prove an existential threat to humanity.

But he is also investing heavily in the nascent industry and hopes to use the technology in his other companies, including Tesla, SpaceX and X.

Musk has said he cofounded OpenAI in 2015 because he regarded the dash by Google into the sector to make big advances and score profits as reckless.

He then left OpenAI in 2018 to focus on Tesla, saying later he was uncomfortable with the profit-driven direction the company was taking under the stewardship of CEO Sam Altman.

Musk also argues that OpenAI's large language models—on which ChatGPT depends on for content—are overly politically correct.

The multibillionaire is one of the world's few investors with deep enough pockets to compete with OpenAI, Google or Meta on AI.

Building an AI model at the same scale as those companies comes at an enormous expense in computing power, infrastructure and expertise.

© 2023 AFP