Elon Musk launches his own AI company- xAI, rival to Google’s Open AI

Elon Musk never fails to surprise everyone with his new creative ideas and technologies to beat his rivals. This time, the Twitter CEO has launched his own artificial intelligence company, xAI, as he seeks to compete with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT – a programme he accuses of being politically biased and irresponsible.

Elon Musk launches xAi – a new AI company

The newly launched website, xAI said that Musk would run the company separately from his other giants but that the technology developed would benefit those businesses including the micro-blogging site, Twitter.

“The goal of xAI is to understand the true nature of the universe,” the website said.

Taking it to Twitter, Musk said that his new company aimed to ‘understand reality’ and answer life’s biggest questions.

Who all are in the team?

The startup is staffed by former researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Tesla and the University of Toronto.

That’s not it, the entire team is to be advised by Dan Hendrycks, who is currently leading the Centre for AI Safety, a San Francisco-based organization that warns against developing AI too quickly.

In June, Hendrycks also started the open letter to global leaders that warned AI was a risk to human existence on par with pandemics and nuclear war.

Meanwhile, the Tesla tycoon has repeatedly warned about the dangers of AI, having called it ‘our biggest existential threat,’ and saying that moving too fast was like ‘summoning the demon.’

Musk claimed to be the co-founder of OpenAI

Further, Musk claimed to have co-founded OpenAI in 2015 because he regarded the dash by Google to make advances in AI as reckless.

However, he left OpenAI in 2018 to focus on Tesla. Then, later said that he was also uncomfortable with the profit-driven direction the company was taking under the stewardship of CEO Sam Altman.

The Twitter CEO also argues that OpenAI’s large language models — on which ChatGPT depends for content, as is the case with other AI programs — are overly politically correct.

In April, he shared details of his plans for a new AI tool called ‘TruthGPT’. Speaking in an interview, Musk said that his new AI company would come very late after OpenAI and Google DeepMind, both of which have made great strides in recent years.

“I think I will create a third option, although it’s starting very late in the game. Can it be done? I don’t know, we’ll see,” he added.

It is said that the launch of Musk’s AI company on the scale of OpenAI or Google DeepMind would come at an enormous expense, especially in regards to the necessary semiconductors, known as GPUs, which are mainly built by California company Nvidia.