Elon Musk, renowned as the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and also the owner of Twitter, has made a public announcement about the commencement of a fresh AI company called xAI. The primary objective of this venture is to explore the enigmatic aspects of the universe and gain profound insights into its true essence. Musk and his team are planning to reveal more details about xAI through an upcoming live Twitter Spaces chat scheduled for Friday.
The team members affiliated with xAI are seasoned professionals who have previously worked with esteemed organizations like DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft Research, Twitter, and Tesla. Their collective involvement spans notable projects such as DeepMind’s AlphaCode and OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 chatbots. Musk’s apparent intention with xAI is to position the company as a contender against established players like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic, known for their leading chatbot technologies like ChatGPT, Bard, and Claude.
xAI has Dan Hendrycks on board as an advisor. He is the executive director of the Center for AI Safety, a non-profit with offices in San Francisco. The organization gained attention in May when it published a letter signed by several tech leaders, emphasizing the importance of prioritizing the risks of AI-induced extinction as a global concern, alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war. However, the letter faced criticism from certain academics and ethicists who argue that excessive focus on potential future threats of AI detracts from addressing the immediate harms caused by specific algorithms to marginalized communities.
Greg Yang, one of the co-founders of xAI, expressed that the company aims to explore the mathematical foundations of deep learning and strive towards developing a comprehensive theory for large-scale neural networks, thus propelling AI to new heights.
In March, Musk formally established xAI in Nevada. While Musk had previously utilized the name “X Corp” in financial filings associated with Twitter, the xAI website clarifies that the company is distinct from X Corp. Furthermore, the website highlights xAI’s intention to collaborate closely with Twitter, Tesla, and other companies in their joint pursuit of a shared mission.
