San Francisco, CA – Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI has developed its own conversational chatbot named “Grok,” according to tweets from Musk on Friday evening. Grok appears to be xAI’s answer to ChatGPT, the popular chatbot created by Musk’s former company OpenAI.
Musk claims Grok has some key advantages over ChatGPT, including real-time access to information on X, the social media platform Musk recently acquired. This allows Grok to provide more up-to-date responses on current events and topics related to X. Additionally, Musk says Grok has some internet browsing capabilities, enabling it to search the web for additional context when answering questions.
However, Musk implied Grok will refuse to answer controversial or dangerous queries, unlike ChatGPT which has faced criticism for providing harmful instructions when prompted. “It’s designed to have a little more humor in its responses,” Musk tweeted regarding Grok’s handling of problematic questions.
Little is publicly known about Grok or xAI’s other projects, as the company has revealed few details about its artificial intelligence research since being founded by Musk in 2021. xAI has collaborated with companies like Oracle and Tesla with the goal of “understanding the true nature of the universe,” according to Musk.
Musk stated that Grok will first be released on Saturday, November 4th to a small group of testers. However, in a follow-up tweet, Musk said all subscribers to X’s new $16 per month Premium Plus service will gain access once Grok is out of early beta testing.
The unveiling of Grok represents increasing competition between Musk and his former OpenAI colleagues. Musk resigned from OpenAI’s board in 2018 over disagreements about its commercial direction. More recently, Musk cut off OpenAI’s access to X data after arguing the company did not pay enough for it.
With the launch of Grok, Musk aims to challenge OpenAI’s dominance in conversational AI. While details remain scarce, Musk claims Grok is “the best that currently exists in some important respects.” It remains to be seen whether Grok can match the popularity of ChatGPT, which has amassed millions of users since its release in November.
