Renowned business magnate Elon Musk inaugurated his highly anticipated artificial intelligence venture, xAI, on Wednesday, revealing a lineup of engineers cherry-picked from the same prominent American tech companies that Musk aims to rival in his quest to provide an alternate to OpenAI's ChatGPT.
The multifaceted Musk, known for his roles as the chief executive of electric vehicle manufacturer Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), space exploration company SpaceX, and his ownership of Twitter, will spearhead the new enterprise. Musk, who has frequently voiced his concerns about the uncontrolled progression of AI and the need for its regulation, believes that unchecked AI might result in "catastrophic societal outcomes."
During a Twitter Spaces gathering on Wednesday, Musk outlined his strategy for the development of a safer AI platform. xAI's primary objective, according to Musk, is not to imbue its AI with a pre-defined set of morals, but rather to engineer a profoundly "curious" AI.
Musk proposed that an AI attempting to decipher the universe's fundamental nature would be the most desirable outcome from a safety perspective. He stated, "Its proclivity towards humanity will naturally stem from the fact that the human experience is far more intriguing than its absence."
Musk foresees the emergence of superintelligence, AI surpassing human intelligence, within the next half-decade or so.
Musk, who co-founded OpenAI, the developer of ChatGPT, in 2015, stepped down from the organization's board in 2018. Tech giant Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) is a stakeholder in OpenAI.
xAI's website announced an upcoming Twitter Spaces event slated for July 14th.
The assembly of professionals at xAI comprises Igor Babuschkin, previously with Google's DeepMind; Tony Wu, an ex-employee of Google (O:GOOGL); Christian Szegedy, a former research scientist at Google; and Greg Yang, a past Microsoft staffer.
Musk had previously registered X.AI Corp in Nevada, as per state filings in March, appointing himself as the exclusive director and delegating Jared Birchall, the managing director of Musk's private office, as secretary.
In April, Musk announced plans to roll out TruthGPT, a maximum truth-pursuing AI, to compete against Google's Bard and Microsoft's Bing AI, both designed to comprehend the universe's nature.
OpenAI's release of the highly successful chatbot, ChatGPT, in November of the preceding year, spotlighted generative AI, preceding the introduction of Bard and Bing AI.
Dan Hendrycks, director of the Center for AI Safety and an authority on AI risks, has been brought on as a consultant to the xAI team.
Though distinct from X Corp, Musk's new venture will maintain close ties with Twitter, Tesla, and other firms, as per information on the website.
xAI's current recruitment efforts are focused on seasoned engineers and researchers in the San Francisco Bay Area.
