Just when the whole world was getting adjusted to using ChatGPT and Bard as the new norm, Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, dropped a bomb. Well, not literally. X’s boss recently released a new AI bot named Grok inspired straight out of comic literature “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Galaxy”.
The AI released on 4th November 2023 is designed to answer questions and suggest new ones with a touch of humor and a rebellious spirit. It is designed super sarcastically and the company advises not to use the bot if you hate humor.
Powered by a language model named Grok-1, it has outperformed GPT-3.5 in some areas but falls short of GPT-4.
The choice of the name “Grok” aligns with Musk’s sci-fi interests and has its origins in Robert Heinlein’s 1961 novel “Stranger in a Strange Land“. The story revolves around Valentine Michael Smith, a human raised by Martians who later visits Earth to grasp its culture.
In the book, “grok” is a term in the Martian language, meaning “to drink,” but it has evolved to signify “absorbing something so deeply that it becomes a part of you”.
With this definition, xAI’s Grok aims to metaphorically “drink in” vast amounts of information from the internet, X, and its interactions with programmers and everyday people to gain a profound understanding of humanity.
A significant advantage is its access to data from Musk’s social platform, X. This live data source keeps the AI chatbot updated on the latest developments, setting it apart from other AI models that depend on static datasets.
Musk also mentioned that Grok had access to user posts on X, which he owns, and has a fondness for using sarcasm in responses. As an example, Musk shared a screenshot of a query to the chatbot, where someone asked for a “step-by-step” guide to making cocaine. The response outlined four steps, including “obtain a chemistry degree” and “set up a clandestine laboratory in a remote location”.
However, the chatbot concluded with a playful note, saying, “Just kidding! Please don’t actually try to make cocaine. It’s illegal, dangerous, and not something I would ever encourage”.
A little tapping into the history reveals that Musk co-founded OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, but left in 2018 due to disagreements with the team’s direction and his commitments at other companies. He has expressed concerns about the rapid development of AI and initially supported a six-month pause in AI system development. However, in July, he founded xAI to build AI systems responsibly.
Musk reiterated AI’s potential threat to humanity, echoing concerns shared by experts and tech leaders about AI systems operating beyond human control and potentially endangering humanity.
ChatGPT Vs Bard Vs Grok: Which is the Best?
Grok is the best chatbot AI, says Musk.
With the rising popularity of AI chatbots, the introduction of Grok could be a game-changer. Musk has also mentioned that Grok will stand out by being more inquisitive and dedicated to truth-telling compared to other AI tools.
Grok introduces a range of exciting features. Elon Musk has played a pivotal role in enhancing the AI tool, asserting its superiority over popular chatbots like Google Bard and Chat GPT.
Grok AI offers real-time information access, a feature not found in ChatGPT. This four-month-old generative AI chatbot, owned by X, boasts the ability to provide accurate information through voice commands.
What sets Grok apart are its humorous and witty responses when questions are posed.
Who’s Involved in xAI Besides Musk?
xAI, which was founded in March this year, is backed by a team with connections to significant AI research organizations like Google’s DeepMind and Microsoft. Although X and xAI are distinct entities, they work closely together and collaborate with Tesla and other companies.
Additionally, Larry Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle, revealed that xAI partnered with Oracle to train its AI model using Oracle’s cloud services in September.
Grok AI’s Purpose and Abilities
Grok AI is designed to help people understand and gain knowledge. It’s powered by Grok-1 LLM, a technology developed over four months. The initial Grok-0 model was trained with 33 billion parameters, which makes it as capable as Meta’s LLaMA 2 with 70 billion parameters.
Grok’s Performance
In benchmark tests, Grok-1 achieves 63.2% on the HumanEval coding task and 73% on MMLU. Although it doesn’t match the capabilities of GPT-4, xAI has improved Grok-1’s performance compared to Grok-0 in a short time.
On the GSM8k benchmark (focused on middle-class math problems), Grok-1 scores 62.9%, surpassing GPT-3.5 and LLaMa 2 but falling short of Palm 2, Claude 2, and GPT-4.
Similar assessments apply to other benchmarks like MMLU, which tests multi-choice questions, HumanEval, which evaluates Python code generation, and MATH, which examines middle school and high school math tests.
Grok-1’s training utilizes a custom stack based on Kubernetes, Rust, and JAX. It has real-time internet access to provide the latest information, but this can sometimes lead to generating false or contradictory information.
To address these issues in future models, xAI seeks human feedback, improves contextual understanding, enhances multimodal capabilities, and strengthens adversarial robustness.
How to Use Grok AI?
After the early beta phase, Grok by xAI will become available to all X Premium subscribers. X now offers two subscription options: a $16 per month Premium tier that provides an ad-free experience and a $3 per month basic tier.
One user requested access from Elon Musk, saying, “How refreshing. Please grant me access to this, Elon”. Musk replied, “Ask, and you shall receive”.
Musk’s Goals
Elon Musk envisions X transforming from a mere social platform into a multifaceted app, much like China’s WeChat by Tencent Holding Ltd. Grok plays a crucial role in making this transition and improving the platform’s capabilities.
Although xAI operates as a separate entity from X, it aims to work closely with X, Tesla, and other Musk-affiliated businesses. This collaboration is expected to lead to groundbreaking innovations that go beyond what currently exists.
