Elon Musk Announces Grok, Will Become Open Source

Illustration of Grok, Elon mUsk's artificial intelligence platform. (photo: x @grok)

JAKARTA - Elon Musk announced on Monday 11 March that its artificial intelligence startup, xAI, will open a source of code from their ChatGPT competitor called "Grok" this week. This was done, days after the SpaceX CEO sued OpenAI for leaving its original mission for a profit-oriented model.

The billionaire has warned several times about the use of technology for profit by big tech companies like Google. Earlier this month, he filed a lawsuit against Microsoft-backed OpenAI, which he co-founded in 2015 but left three years later.

In response, OpenAI published an email showing that the Tesla CEO supports plans to create a profit-oriented entity and wants a merger with the electric vehicle manufacturer to turn the combined company into a "money league."

"This week, @xAI will open a Grok source," Musk said in an upload on X, his social media platform.

The move could give the public free access to experiment with the code behind the technology and align xAI with companies like Meta and Mistral from France, both of which have open-source artificial intelligence models. Google has also released an artificial intelligence model called Gemma that can be developed by external developers as needed.

Tech investors including supporters of OpenAI, Vinod Khosla, and Marc Andreessen, founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, have been discussing open-sources in artificial intelligence since Musk filed a lawsuit against ChatGPT creators.

While open-source technology can help accelerate innovation, some experts have warned that open-source artificial intelligence models can be used by terrorists to manufacture chemical weapons or even develop super intelligence that is aware beyond human control.

Musk said in the AI Safety Summit in the United Kingdom last year that he wanted to establish a "third-party referee" that could oversee companies developing artificial intelligence and alerting them if they had concerns.

Looking for alternatives to OpenAI and Google, Musk launched xAI last year to create what he said was "the maximum truth-finding artificial intelligence." In December, the startup launched Grok for Premium+ subscribers on X.

In a podcast episode with computer scientist and podcaster Lex Fridman, Musk suggested in November 2023 that he supports the concept of open-source artificial intelligence.

"'Nama, 'open' in 'open AI,' should mean open source, and it was created as open source nonprofit. And now it's closed source for maximum profit," Musk said.