After suing OpenAI this month, alleging the company has become too closed, Elon Musk says he will release his “truth-seeking” answer to ChatGPT, the chatbot Grok, for anyone to download and use.
“This week, @xAI will open source Grok,” Musk wrote on his social media platform X today. That suggests his AI company, xAI, will release the full code of Grok and allow anyone to use or alter it. By contrast, OpenAI makes a version of ChatGPT and the language model behind it available to use for free but keeps its code private.
Musk had previously said little about the business model for Grok or xAI, and the chatbot was made available only to Premium subscribers to X. Having accused his OpenAI cofounders of reneging on a promise to give away the company’s artificial intelligence earlier this month, Musk may have felt he had to open source his own chatbot to show that he is committed to that vision.
OpenAI re-asserted their stance last week with regards to the lawsuit filed by Musk by making public some email communications between Musk and others. From the communications, it seemed Musk supported the idea of limiting the accessibility of the company’s technology as it grew in power. Before his departure from the project in 2018, Musk had invested over $40 million into OpenAI.
Upon the announcement of the development of Grok, Musk assured that it would harbor less political bias than ChatGPT or any other AI models, a sentiment shared by others who have criticized these models for leaning too much to the liberal side. However, tests performed by WIRED and others indicated that while Grok could be quite provocative, it failed to show any significant bias, perhaps shedding light on the difficulties involved in making an AI model consistently maintain a particular viewpoint.
Grok being open-sourced could be a strategic move to attract more interest towards Musk’s company’s AI. Currently, access to Grok is limited to only paying subscribers of X, putting it at a disadvantage compared to more globally recognized platforms like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Gemini. The release of Grok could pull in developers to utilise and enhance the model, and potentially reach more end users. The resultant data could then be used by xAI to further improve its technology.
With Musk’s intention to liberate Grok, he seems to be aligning his strategy with Meta’s approach towards generative AI. Meta’s open source models, such as the Llama 2, have gained popularity among developers for their adaptability and customization opportunities. But following in Meta’s footsteps may also draw Musk into the ongoing debate about the advantages and potential dangers of providing open access to the most powerful AI models.
Many AI experts argue that open sourcing AI models has significant benefits such as increasing transparency and broadening access. “Open models are safer and more robust, and it’s great to see more options from leading companies in the space,” says Emad Mostaque, founder of Stability AI, a company that builds various open source AI models.
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Yet a significant number of AI researchers believe that as AI becomes more capable it may be necessary to restrict access to certain models. In addition to worrying that future AI models may become unruly and deceptive, making them difficult to control, some experts have suggested that even today’s models can help generate dangerous disinformation or produce chemical or biological weapons.
A research paper released last month by researchers in academia and industry who reviewed different risk assessments of AI models concluded that such fears may be premature. The researchers said that reliable and systematic ways to measure the danger posed by AI models do not yet exist.
Although xAI is a much younger, smaller AI project than OpenAI, given Musk’s considerable resources Grok has the potential to be a very powerful AI model in future. Once Grok is released to the world, outside AI experts will be able to test just how capable it is.
Eric Hartford, a developer who works on open source AI modes, says he’s excited to get his hands on Grok. “I’ll be fine-tuning it the moment it is released,” he says, referring to a process used to adapt AI models to a particular use case. He probably won’t be the only one rushing to get their hands on Grok’s guts.
