Elon Musk Introduces ‘Grok,’ an AI Chatbot with Sarcasm and Rebellion”
Elon Musk, the owner of X (formerly Twitter), unveiled the arrival of “Grok,” an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot with a penchant for sarcasm, akin to Musk’s own sense of humor.
Musk shared the news late Saturday, indicating that Grok is in its initial phases of training, with access to real-time information from the platform, facilitated by his AI startup, xAI. The blog post from xAI highlighted the inspiration drawn from “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” a humorous sci-fi novel by Douglas Adams.
The chatbot, according to Musk’s announcement on X, possesses a fondness for sarcasm. “Grok loves sarcasm,” Musk stated, playfully suggesting his ignorance about who guided the bot in that direction.
The AI chatbot boasts a rebellious streak and a witty demeanor, as underscored by xAI in its blog post. They advised against using Grok for those who don’t appreciate humor.
While still in the early testing phase, Musk mentioned plans to offer Grok to subscribers of X’s Premium+ service in the United States. This subscription includes features like the coveted blue checkmark and is priced at $16 a month.
Grok, aimed to compete with ChatGPT, another AI chatbot launched by OpenAI, exhibits advanced capabilities. xAI asserted that Grok-1, powered by a larger language model (LLM) than the publicly available ChatGPT using GPT-3.5, outperforms in solving complex math problems, nearing the capabilities of models like GPT-4 trained with more data and computing resources.
Musk has expressed concerns about the rapid advancement of AI technology and its potential adverse impact on society. xAI foresees Grok’s rapid progress as X users contribute more information to its development, although this prospect might raise concerns among critics of Musk’s oversight of the platform since he acquired it in October last year.
Under Musk’s stewardship, the platform has adopted a stance on free speech, and he emphasized being “very reluctant” to delete content or permanently ban users. This approach drew acknowledgment from British far-right figure Tommy Robinson, who thanked Musk for reinstating his account after being banned five years ago due to posting Islamophobic content on the platform.
