Elon Musk Criticizes OpenAI, Announces xAI's Grok Open Source

Elon Musk has been extremely critical of ChatGPT maker OpenAI for deviating from its mission to develop AI for the benefit of humanity and taking a profit-making path. He has advocated that artificial intelligence (AI) should be accessible for all, and he has now announced that his AI startup xAI will open source Grok chatbot this week.

“This week, @xAI will open source Grok,” Musk said in a post on X (formerly Twitter).

In simpler words, open-sourcing a software, like a chatbot, means that the software projects are redistributable as all source code is accessible by everyone. One of the advantages of having open source software is that it provides flexibility to an enterprise to have multiple ways of fixing a problem rather than waiting for an internal team to provide a solution.

“OpenAI is a lie”

Meanwhile, a user suggested that OpenAI should do the same.

“OpenAI should do the same if they are ‘open’ that is,” the user said. Musk replied, “OpenAI is a lie.”

Musk wants AI technology to be open-source

Musk had floated the idea of open-sourcing AI during a podcast in November last year. In a podcast with Lex Fridman, Musk suggested that he likes the idea of open-source AI. “I am generally in favour of open sourcing, like biassed towards open sourcing,” he said.

His comments came soon after his AI company called xAI released Grok, its chatbot, which reportedly took four months to build. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman was quick to take a dig at this and shared a post in which he built Grok with a single prompt on GPT Builder.

"GPTs can save a lot of effort:” he said.

Musk, obviously didn't like the jab and replied with a long-ish message saying “GPT-4 is about as funny as a screendoor on a submarine.”