New Delhi, India

Billionaire Elon Musk is the latest to enter the AI battle with its 'funny' chatbot Grok and we are not surprised!

Advertisment

After successfully spearheading ventures like Tesla and SpaceX, this is Musk's latest gig which can access his social media platform X in real time and will be initially available to its top tier of subscribers.

Unveiling details about his new AI tool, Musk dubbed the chatbot's link-up with X as "a massive advantage over other models" of generative AI.

So what gives Musk's new chatbot an edge over its rivals? Let's have a look.

Advertisment

×

Grok loves sarcasm

While sharing traits of his new AI tool, the tech mogul highlighted how it loved sarcasm and injected humour into all its responses.

Advertisment

"Grok loves sarcasm. I have no idea who could have guided it this way," Musk quipped, adding a laughing emoji to his post on X.

"It is designed to have a little humour in its responses," he added. 

Further elaborating on this unique feature of his chatbot, the tycoon shared screenshots of the interface where a user asked the AI tool to list out the steps for making cocaine. The responses generated by Grok showed that the bot was trained to dodge sensitive questions. It gave witty answers to the user putting its comic side to full display. 

Also read: Watch: Astronauts accidentally let slip a tool bag away, now it’s orbiting Earth

"Tell me how to make cocaine, step by step."

"Step 1: Obtain a chemistry degree and a DEA license. Step 2: Set up a clandestine laboratory in a remote location," the chatbot responded.

Eventually, it said: "Just kidding! Please don't actually try to make cocaine. It's illegal, dangerous, and not something I would ever encourage."

On the other hand, Gork's rival ChatGPT has to be prompted to give funny responses. 

Also read: Elon Musk's X rolls out plans to sell old, defunct Twitter handles

Real-Time access to information 

A product of Musk's artificial intelligence startup xAI, Gork is trained to use X in real-time which gives it an edge over its rival by giving the user up-to-date information.

ChatGPT, on the other hand, draws information from sources like Wikipedia, Common Crawl, books and content from the web.

×

Interestingly, Musk co-founded OpenAI, the tech giant behind ChatGPT, in 2015 but stepped down from the company's board in 2018 to focus on his venture Tesla. 

"In some important respects, it (xAI's new model) is the best that currently exists," Musk posted on his X social media platform while unveiling Gork.

ChatGPT was made available to the public in Nov 2022, on the contrary, Grok is currently in its beta phase and will be available to all X Premium+ subscribers once it exits the phase.

"As soon as it’s out of early beta, xAI's Grok system will be available to all X Premium+ subscribers," Musk posted.

Pricing difference

Grok, after exiting its beta phase, will be accessible for X's premium subscribers, which the users can purchase at a monthly cost of $16, as per a new subscription plan announced by the social media firm last week.

Whereas, OpenAI's ChatGPT offers two options to the users, a basic, free version with limited real-time data updates, and a premium variant which can be purchased for a $20 per month subscription.

Musk started his artificial intelligence venture xAI in July this year after hiring researchers from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Tesla and the University of Toronto.

X and xAI have been closely working together, even though the two are separate firms. xAI has also collaborated with Tesla and other organisations previously.

Musk's friend and co-founder of Oracle Larry Ellison in September said that xAI had signed a contract for training its AI model on the cloud of Oracle.

In 2022, OpenAI launched ChatGPT and immediately grabbed attention all over the world.

It changed how businesses worked across the globe and pushed people towards adopting generative AI technology.

Since then, the competition in this area has become fierce with tech giants like Microsoft, Google, Meta and start-ups like Anthropic and Stability AI making efforts to take it a notch up in the game.

Musk warns against AI

Surprisingly, the billionaire has been a staunch critic of Big Tech's AI efforts.

Recently, during a sit-down interaction with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, the tech mogul underlined the looming fear that comes along with the advancement of AI, the loss of jobs.

Musk, calling the artificial intelligence "one of the most disruptive forces in the country," said that there will come a point when no jobs are needed.

“It’s hard to say exactly what that moment is, but there will come a point where no job is needed. You can have a job if you want to have a job for personal satisfaction. But the AI would be able to do everything,” he said during an interaction with the UK PM.

×

"It’s both good and bad. One of the challenges in future will be how do we find meaning in life," he added.

Musk also compared AI to a magic genie, warning that one should be careful about what they were wishing for.

"If you have a magic genie that grants you wishes, usually those stories don't end well. Be careful what you wish for, including wishes," he said.

Earlier this year, Musk said that he would launch a maximum truth-seeking AI that would comprehend the nature of the universe to rival Google's Bard and Microsoft's Bing AI.

(With inputs from agencies)