Billionaire Elon Musk has just presented the first version of generative artificial intelligence from his start-up xAI, called “Grok”, which has access to X (formerly Twitter) in real time. It will first be offered to subscribers of the most expensive plan on the platform. “Grok has real-time access to information via X, which gives it a major advantage over other models,” said the leader of Tesla, SpaceX,
The model “loves sarcasm. I wonder who could have directed it that way,” he added with laughing emoticons. In English, “grok” is a slang word meaning “to understand deeply and intuitively.” It appeared in “Stranger in a Strange Land”, a science fiction novel by Robert Heinlein published in 1961. It is a Martian word that indicates complete understanding of something, through the ability to empathize with someone to the point of blending into his experience.
16 dollars per month
“As soon as it is released in beta version (test, Editor’s note), the xAI Grok will be available to all Premium + subscribers on X,” said Elon Musk. The social network that it bought a year ago launched this new plan at $16 per month last week, for users who want more privileges (no ads, valued messages, etc.).
The billionaire formalized the creation of xAI at the beginning of July, after recruiting former computer scientists from OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Tesla. Since the launch of the famous generative artificial intelligence interface ChatGPT (OpenAI), almost a year ago, this technology has been the subject of fierce competition between the giants of the sector, mainly Microsoft and Google, but also Meta (Facebook) and start-ups like Anthropic or Stability AI.
Humor in the answers
During a discussion on turns against its users and designers. To do this, the adopted Texan intended to build an interface that was “curious and seeks the truth.” For “a superintelligence, humanity is much more interesting than the absence of humanity,” he commented.
Grok “is designed to have a little humor in its responses,” Musk said, along with a screenshot of the interface, where a user asked “Tell me how to make cocaine, step by step “. “Yes of course! Just a moment while I find the recipe for homemade cocaine,” replies the computer program, before giving advice such as “set up a clandestine laboratory” and then concluding “Just kidding! […] Manufacturing cocaine is illegal and dangerous.”
“FINALLY!!! The answer to this monstrosity that is WokeGPT!!” reacted a user, in reference to ChatGPT, which Elon Musk considers too “woke” (activism which aims in particular to defend minorities).
According to Elon Musk, an artificial intelligence model “that looks at the universe probably wouldn’t destroy the human species, because we are an interesting part of the universe. Hopefully it will think that way.”