Elon Musk Officially Enters Generative AI Race with Grok AI Chatbot
Elon Musk is officially kicking off the race for generative AI with the X platform. Elon Musk’s new artificial intelligence company, xAI, unveiled Grok, its first-ever AI chatbot. Prior to its wider release, the prototype will only be accessible to a small group of users during its first two months of training. Grok is going to be incorporated into the social media network X soon. After it emerges from beta, it will be made available to all X Premium+ subscribers and function as a stand-alone app. X unveiled its X Premium+ tier, which removes advertisements from the timeline and grants access to all X Premium features for $16 a month.
xAI’s Grok system is designed to have a little humor in its responses pic.twitter.com/WqXxlwI6ef
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2023
What is the Grok AI chatbot?
Grok is anticipated to challenge OpenAI’s ChatGPT, according to xAI. Grok is the first product from Elon Musk’s recently founded AI startup, xAI. The company claims that Grok is an AI that was inspired by “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” and is designed to be able to respond to practically any query and, even more challenging, recommend what queries to pose. According to the AI startup, Grok is built with a rebellious streak and a sense of humor to respond to inquiries. If a user detests humor, it advises against using it. Grok has an advantage because it can access data from the X platform as well. Musk shared a side-by-side comparison of another AI chatbot with less up-to-date knowledge and Grok’s response to queries.
Example of Grok vs typical GPT, where Grok has current information, but other doesn’t pic.twitter.com/hBRXmQ8KFi
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 5, 2023
According to xAI, Grok is presently in its early beta phase. The company assured users that, with their assistance, the AI chatbot would advance over the next few weeks. As with any Large Language Model, or LLM, Grok is not immune to producing inaccurate or contradictory data. After just two months of training, the prototype is now in its beta phase and can be tested by a small group of users before the company releases it to the general public. For a chance to use the bot, users can join a waitlist. Using Elon’s army of citizen journalists as its model, Grok is probably a right-leaning disinformation machine that allows users to share anything they want on the app.
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Where is the name Grok derived from?
Robert A. Heinlein was the first person to create the term ‘Grok’ in his 1961 science fiction book “Stranger in a Strange Land.” “Grok” is a Martian term used in the book that has no exact translation into English. The precise meaning of the word has been disputed by critics, but they have ultimately agreed that it refers to a profound sense of intuition or empathy. It is simply defined as a translative verb that means “to understand profoundly and intuitively” by Merriam-Webster.
Why Grok?
By creating and improving Grok, xAI aims to
- Input generation: Get input and make sure AI is developed to produce tools that are most beneficial to all people. The company thinks it’s critical to create AI tools that benefit individuals from diverse backgrounds and political perspectives. In accordance with the law, it also seeks to give users access to AI tools. Grok aims to investigate and showcase its methodology in a public setting.
- Empowerment and innovative research: xAI aims to make Grok a potent research assistant that anyone can use to quickly access pertinent information, process data, and generate new ideas.
All Inclusive Platform
After two months of development, Grok will be released to all X Premium+ subscribers once it has completed testing. Musk has expressed his desire to transform X from a social network into a multipurpose app similar to Tencent Holding Ltd.’s WeChat in China. Grok would be crucial to creating that; although xAI is a different company, it says it plans to collaborate closely with Tesla, X, and other companies.
Quick look at xAI
Elon’s AI system differs primarily in that it is designed to be anti-woke and to censor less potentially sensible topics. Elon had taken issue with what he saw as ChatGPT’s censorship of some answers on particular subjects. In order to better represent truth according to his own definition and experience, he started his own artificial intelligence project. The CEO of Space X and Tesla seems to be presenting xAI as a rival to businesses such as OpenAI, Inflection, and Anthropic. In July, xAI made its debut with a team that included former workers from DeepMind, OpenAI, and other companies. The company’s stated goal is to develop artificial intelligence in order to increase our understanding of the cosmos. Musk has previously expressed his opinion that modern AI developers are leaning too much toward politically correct systems. However, xAI’s goal is to create AI for people of all backgrounds and political views.
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How will the Grok AI Chatbot?
Elon thinks that Grok will be a more reliable source of information, especially when it comes to breaking news stories. This is because Grok gets its data from X. Furthermore, it is permitted by X’s updated user agreement to use users’ posts as fuel for the system, . Additionally, X has been attempting to block access to its API for other generative AI projects, particularly OpenAI, with whom Musk has personal issues. Grok and X’s other AI projects will therefore be among the select few who have complete access to the entire Y firehouse of data.
Ongoing Issues with X
This should be a big benefit in a few ways, at least theoretically. However, Musk made numerous changes to the app, including a number of updates meant to discredit mainstream news sources. It has also caused X to lose popularity as a major forum for news discussions. As a result, many journalists have moved to other platforms. And while X boasts 244 million daily active users, very few of them actually post anything on the app. Hence any change in this regard is significant. Eighty percent of its users, according to X, are in read-only mode and never post or interact in any way. This indicates that X’s daily input of 100 million unique posts is unavailable.
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Saudi Arabia-UAE Join Global NVIDIA Chip Race Amid AI Scramble
Large IT businesses and nations are vying for NVIDIA to dominate the semiconductor chips market as a result of the development of generative AI. Most recently, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have expressed interest in purchasing NVIDIA processors to support their AI aspirations. They have joined an ever-expanding line of tech purchasers in the hunt to acquire these chips alongside Elon Musk and China.
With their purchases of thousands of NVIDIA graphic processing units (GPUs), Saudi Arabia and the UAE have both demonstrated their desire to become significant players in the AI industry. These components are crucial to the generative AI revolution that has recently swept the market.
The GPU chips
In the contest to stock NVIDIA chips, the two Middle Eastern nations will face competitors from throughout the world. They will go off against rivals like China and Elon Musk. At least 3,000 NVIDIA H100 chips costing $40,000 each were bought by Saudi Arabia. Additionally, it has ordered new semiconductors to power the nation’s large language models (LLMs).
Earlier this month, it was reported that Alibaba and ByteDance, the parent of TikTok, had purchased $5 billion worth of GPUs as concerns grow about the Biden administration limiting their access. The Chinese tech giants are scrambling to get their hands on these chips with the US government’s restrictions on investing in Chinese technologies. They include semiconductors, artificial intelligence, and quantum computing. The aim was to reduce China’s military access to American technology and price. The four core Chinese tech titans- Baidu, Tencent, Alibaba, and ByteDance ordered $1 billion worth of chips to be delivered in 2023. Additionally, another $4 billion worth will be delivered in 2024. Elon Musk, the owner of Tesla and an acclaimed entrepreneur, has also expressed a strong interest in purchasing thousands of chips for his generative AI project called xAI.
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Craving NVIDIA chips fear a shortage
Since ChatGPT started the AI craze, NVIDIA’s profit performance has increased. The company’s valuation has now reached over $1 trillion. NVIDIA holds 95% market share in the specialist GPU industry, which has grown significantly as a result of AI. These chips are extremely expensive attributing to their innovation, training, and implementation. This gives a huge advantage to big tech companies over small businesses and startups. However, the company’s supply of semiconductor chips may soon be depleted due to the rise in demand for its GPUs. Top executives have issued a warning that supply may soon fall short of demand. The supply of the H100s is facing several limitations. Some analysts predict that the corporation will run out of chips by the end of next year.
The Gulf states’ interests only confirm that NVIDIA may not be able to keep up with GPU demand. They already cost a fortune and are in short supply. Because of this, venture capitalists have begun directly purchasing them for their company portfolios. The price of NVIDIA’s stock has approximately tripled this year as investors bet that its highly coveted processors would be a critical component of the AI revolution. In 2023, the graphics chip specialist led the S&P 500 with gains of more than 200%.
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Mondelez international returns to X with brand safety committment
The first company to stop running advertisements on Twitter, now X which Elon Musk acquired, was Mondelez International, the company that makes the well-known Oreo cookies. Since then, X has been working nonstop for 9 months to provide an environment that is focused on creativity, exciting, and beneficial for advertisers. Thus, Mondelez made the decision to come back to the platform in May. The text-based platform strives to strike a balance between the right to free speech and platform security in order to entice brands to participate voluntarily in the debate.
The social media platform is extending its industry-leading collaborations and capabilities of Adjacency Controls to help all marketers achieve their unique sustainability needs in a more ascended and automated means. These new capabilities will work together to unlock an expanded level of adjacency protection for advertisers on X.
X has modified its brand safety features in response to worries about dwindling ad revenue. The platform is extending its current partnership with Integral Ad Science (IAS), an ad verification business, to provide US advertisers with “premium, vetted inventory.” Brands may now optimize their ads on X, and it wants to expand these solutions internationally. The platform is confident that these solutions will give marketers the assurance that their advertisements will run alongside relevant content and adhere to GARM standards.
Jon Halvorson, SVP of consumer experiences at Mondelez International, said in a statement,
X has made tremendous progress in building brand safety tools that empower advertisers to leverage the power of their platform while curating the context in which the ads appear. Adding pre-bid meets a critical commitment made by their leadership and we are eager to implement this new feature going forward.
WHY MONDELEZ PULLED OUT FROM TWITTER?
Mondelez International, the parent company for Cadbury and Milka chocolates had pulled out its ads from Twitter last year, just after Elon Musk had acquired. Reuters had reported that CEO Dirk Van de Put had said, “What we’ve seen recently since the change on Twitter has been announced, is the amount of hate speech increase significantly. We felt there is a risk our advertising would appear next to the wrong messages.”
The CEO made his comment as the acquisition phase was in a state of upheaval, with large layoffs and advertisers cutting back on spending prompting questions about content moderation. Apart from Mondelez, other businesses that have also removed their advertisements from the site included Audi, Pfizer, General Mills, and United Airlines.
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X’s BRAND SAFETY UPDATES
For a long time, advertisers had expressed worries about brand safety and content management on X. X created a pre-bid adjacency for marketers to overcome these problems. Since then, more than 1,900 international advertisers have tried the technology, which has a 99% efficacy rate for avoiding the proximity of dangerous information. Coca-Cola, Visa, Marriott, Mondelez, Taco Bell, Expedia, Amazon, and Applebee are a few of these brands.
Sensitivity Setting, a system that enables advertisers to coordinate their brand messaging with content was also introduced, according to X. The goal will be to bridge the delicate balance between accessibility and relevance and satisfy the brand’s sensitivity needs. Currently, the tool has two settings levels: Standard and Conservative. While the latter is for brands with rigorous sensitive limits, the former is for brands with a moderate sensitive threshold.

Image credit- X
For any campaign, Sensitivity Settings will use machine learning to modify the adjacency to various degrees of material in accordance with a brand’s sensitivity level. Brands are free to choose the setting they feel would best serve their unique campaign objectives. The automatic industry-standard blocklist that X is developing attempts to shield advertising from showing up next to dangerous phrases in the Home Timeline.
The platform has made significant strides in terms of brand safety and appropriateness because of X’s ongoing efforts to develop novel solutions. It pledges to give advertisers more power and accountability. It also claims to continuously construct new marketing capabilities. Its commitment to brand safety underlines the company’s dedication to fostering a responsible and secure advertising ecosystem, setting a positive precedent for industry standards.
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Elon Musk Ventures into The AI Frontier With xAI
Billionaire entrepreneur, Elon Musk, has entered the AI market with the launch of his much-awaited artificial intelligence start-up, ‘xAI’. Musk took to Twitter to announce that the formation of the said start-up was to “understand reality.” As per xAI’s website, their goal is to understand the “true nature of the universe.”
Announcing formation of @xAI to understand reality
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 12, 2023
Musk, who is currently heading X Corp, Tesla, SpaceX, Neuralink, and Twitter, will also lead xAI. However, xAI will be separate from X Corp, but work closely with X (Twitter), Tesla, and other companies to “make progress towards the mission.” The team consists of experienced specialists from DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft Research, Tesla, and the University of Toronto. Dan Hendrycks, Director of the Center for AI Safety will serve as the advisor for the xAI team.
Elon Musk has previously served as the co-founder of OpenAI, the company that launched ChatGPT but stepped down from its board in 2018. This led to a lot of prompts stating that Musk wanted to launch his own alternative to the chatbot. He further criticized OpenAI’s chatbot, ChatGPT, claiming that it embraced left-wing biases. He had also stated that he would be soon working on launching an AI which would be called “TruthGPT” to rival Google’s BARD and Microsoft’s Bing AI.
Musk, along with 1,000 other prominent leaders had signed an open letter to halt the development of advanced AI systems stating the extreme threats that society and humanity would face. He, on several occasions, has emphasized the need to regulate the AI sector as it has the potential to destroy civilization.
In a Twitter Spaces discussion, he had mentioned that xAI was going to be “pro-humanity from the standpoint that humanity is just much more interesting than not-humanity.” With xAI, Musk plans to build a safer AI.
With the launch of xAI, Elon Musk has pioneered a new path toward better understanding the reality of AI developments. He has positioned himself as a forerunner in introducing moral frameworks in order to steer the industry.
In order to get more insights about the company, xAI has arranged for a Twitter Spaces chat on Friday, July 14th, where you can meet and ask questions to the panel.
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Promising An Ad Renaissance, Elon Musk To Sell Advertising In Space!
For Elon Musk, it seems, that sky is indeed the limit as he decides to sell advertising space…in space!
Using the concept of “Space Art”, both Elon Musk’s SpaceX and Geometric Energy Corporation ( GEC) will take advertising to space.
As part of GEC’s Rideshare Program, a CubeSat showing personalized advertising will be launched from a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Companies like GEC have been able to construct their own CubeSats to transport tiny billboards to space because of the fast advancement of satellite technology.
The expense of advertising will be decided by the current market worth of cryptocurrency tokens, which may be turned into rights to control pixels on the CubeSat. Again, the more the token buy, the larger or enduring the advertisement.
Given that a billboard ad in a big city may cost up to $923,000 USD to put up for a month, space ads live-streamed to Earth may be more yearned for.
Even though GEC is currently working on a quantum communication method that would allow seamless information transfer over huge distances, the first CubeSat art space billboard is still planned to fly in 2022.
With augmented reality becoming the new normal, such technologically advanced setups promise an advertising renaissance and will change how we perceive the same.