Elon Musk, in collaboration with his AI startup xAI, has introduced “Grok,” an AI chatbot that reportedly outperforms OpenAI’s initial version of ChatGPT in various academic assessments. Musk and the xAI team explained that the primary goal behind creating Grok is to develop AI tools that can assist humanity by advancing research and innovation. They made this announcement in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on November 5.
What sets Grok apart, according to Musk and xAI, is its real-time access to world knowledge through the X platform. They claim that it can tackle even the most challenging questions that other AI systems typically reject. Additionally, Grok is designed to answer questions with humor and a touch of rebelliousness, making it distinct from more conventional AI interfaces.
The engine powering Grok, known as Grok-1, underwent a series of academic tests in mathematics and coding. As per the data shared by xAI, Grok-1 performed better than ChatGPT-3.5 in all of these assessments. However, it did not surpass OpenAI’s most advanced version, GPT-4, in any of the tests.
Musk and xAI explained, “It is only surpassed by models that were trained with a significantly larger amount of training data and compute resources like GPT-4. This showcases the rapid progress we are making at xAI in training LLMs with exceptional efficiency.”
Grok will be available to users through X Premium Plus at a subscription cost of $16 per month. However, it is currently offered to a limited number of users in the United States. The xAI team emphasized that Grok is still in its “very early beta” stage, with plans for continuous improvement over the coming weeks.
Regarding safety measures, xAI expressed its commitment to ensuring that Grok is not misused. They stated, “We believe that AI holds immense potential for contributing significant scientific and economic value to society, so we will work towards developing reliable safeguards against catastrophic forms of malicious use.” In addition, xAI reaffirmed its dedication to ensuring that AI technology remains a positive force for society.
Grok’s launch comes approximately eight months after Elon Musk founded xAI in March. The introduction of this AI chatbot adds to the growing landscape of AI-powered tools and demonstrates the continuous evolution and competition in the field of artificial intelligence.