Knock, knock!

Who's there? Elon.

Elon who? Elon Musk with something new, xAI!

Yes, Elon Musk has announced a new venture – xAI, which aims to revolutionize the AI world.

Here a lowdown on what you need to know about xAI.

In an effort to create a competitor to ChatGPT, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk has finally launched his much-rumored artificial intelligence startup, xAI, revealing a team of engineers from the large U.S. technology firms like Google and Microsoft.

The people behind xAI have worked on project like DeepMind's AlphaCode and OpenAI's GPT-3.5 and GPT-4 chatbots, as well as Google Research, Microsoft Research, Twitter and Tesla. Musk appears to be setting up xAI as a rival to OpenAI, Google and Anthropic, the developers of other popular chatbots like ChatGPT, Bard and Claude.

Musk, who is already CEO of electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla, CEO of space exploration business SpaceX and owner of Twitter, will lead the venture. He has previously said that advancements in artificial intelligence should be halted and that the industry requires better control and regulation.

The Financial Times first reported the startup's existence back in April, around the same time that it was rumoured that Musk had purchased thousands of GPU processors from Nvidia to fuel a potential large language model. Musk laid out his strategy for creating more reliable AI which instead of trying to hardcode ethics into AI, would focus on developing "maximally curious" systems.

"If it tried to understand the true nature of the universe, that's actually the best thing that I can come up with from an AI safety standpoint," Musk said. "I think it is going to be pro-humanity from the standpoint that humanity is just much more interesting than not-humanity."
 
A report by Reuters gives more insight into why Elon Musk decided to create xAI?

Musk has been a vocal proponent of restraint and oversight in the advancement of AI. Concerning the "civilizational destruction" that could result from the unchecked development of AI technology, he has voiced his worries on multiple occasions. To overcome these issues, xAI will use a novel method to protect the integrity of its AI infrastructure.

Musk co-founded OpenAI, the firm behind ChatGPT but he resigned from the company's board of directors in 2018; in March of same year, he formed a new corporation in Nevada under the name X.AI Corp. This action demonstrates Musk's commitment to researching AI in depth. Moreover, xAI will benefit from the direction of Dan Hendrycks, head of the Centre for AI Safety, to ensure a holistic strategy to AI safety. Hendrycks is an expert in assessing dangers posed by AI systems.

However, the question still remains: what can we anticipate from Elon Musk's excursion into artificial intelligence with xAI?

Here’s what to expect from xAI:

To compete with Google's Bard and Microsoft's Bing AI, Musk has previously hinted at the debut of TruthGPT, an AI model focused on achieving maximum truth.

Musk revealed his ideas for this new artificial intelligence he's calling "TruthGPT" during a taped interview with Fox News Channel. In the same interview, he also expressed concern that current AI businesses are giving preference to systems that are "politically correct."
 
Will Elon Musk's latest adventure create more competition in the realm of AI? Do you think xAI will overtake the big names in AI? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below!