Arrr, Musk be bringin' his talkin' AI matey Grok to woo more landlubbers and keep 'em from jumpin' ship.
2024-03-28
Arrr mateys! Elon Musk be shoutin' from the crow's nest that he be makin' Grok more widely available, aimin' to take on the bigwigs at Open AI. Thar be a scuffle goin' on with X users walkin' the plank and a lawsuit brewin' like a storm on the horizon!
Premium subscribers of all tiers for the X social media platform will soon gain access to its generative AI chatbot, Grok. Previously, the chatbot was only accessible to users who subscribed to the most expensive subscription tier, Premium+, for $16 a month. That’s set to change, with X’s owner Elon Musk announcing the expansion of availability to Basic Tier and Premium Tier X users in a post.Grok has been made open-source, reportedly to allow researchers and developers to leverage Grok’s capabilities for their own projects and research. As Dev Technosys, a mobile app and web development company, explains, Grok is Musk’s head-on challenge to ChatGPT, with the billionaire boasting that it beat ChatGPT 3.5 on multiple benchmarks. The model is trained on a massive dataset of text and code, including real-time text from X posts, Wikipedia articles, and academic papers.Some industry observers see this move as an attempt to boost X subscriber numbers, as visitor numbers and user retention have been dropping. Musk hopes that access to Grok will convince people to become subscribers and keep existing ones interested.Musk leveled a lawsuit against Grok’s largest competitor, OpenAI, alleging violations of a contract called the ‘Founding Agreement.’ OpenAI has denied such a contract existed with Musk at all, characterizing the lawsuit as ‘frivolous’ and driven by Musk’s business interests.Despite some controversies, Musk’s Grok gambit is expected to roll out soon, offering users access to a chatbot with a rebellious streak that covers a wide range of topics. The sourcing from X in real-time gives Grok a unique advantage, potentially attracting users with its entertainment value and expanding the competition in the AI chatbot field.