Elon Musk Unveils New AI Startup ‘xAI’

Elon Musk’s latest venture, xAI, is an artificial intelligence company that has been launched and positioning itself as a competitor to other AI developers like OpenAI and Google Bard.

Musk Launches xAI with a Mission to Unveil the True Nature of the Cosmos.

While details about the startup are scarce, the team includes 11 members with previous experience at DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft Research, and Tesla.

Projects they have worked on include AlphaStar, GPT-3.5, and GPT-4. Musk plans to engage in a Twitter Spaces live chat on July 14 to provide further insights.

According to reports, Musk has been working on xAI for a number of months and has purchased 10,000 graphics processing units for AI research.

Dan Hendricks, the director of the nonprofit Center for AI, caused controversy in May with a letter emphasizing the need to address AI’s risk of extinction alongside other global-scale threats.

Even Musk signed an open letter in March advocating for a temporary pause in AI expansion. However, some speculate whether Musk initiated the pause to catch up with other companies, given his plans to establish xAI.

Being the co-founder of OpenAI, Musk’s departure from the board in 2018 was reportedly due to differences over the company’s pace of advancement. With xAI, Musk aims to create a third option that does better than harm, despite joining the AI industry relatively late.

As xAI takes shape, Musk is seeking engineers and researchers in San Francisco to join the team.

However, according to Gene Munster, the managing partner of Deepwater Asset Management, his reputation may need to improve in attracting potential candidates