What is xAI?
xAI is Elon Musk’s just-announced synthetic intelligence firm. Its 12-strong staff plans to “understand the true nature of the universe”, in keeping with an announcement posted on the xAI web site.
xAI is separate to X Corp, the umbrella firm of Twitter, in keeping with the enterprise’s web site, however will “work closely” with Musk’s different corporations, together with Twitter and Tesla, which makes use of AI for its self-driving vehicles. “I don’t know what the deal with the Xs is,” says Catherine Flick at De Montfort University, UK. “He obviously just likes Xs.”
Why has Musk launched it?
It is an extension of Musk’s longstanding curiosity in AI and his return to the sphere after pulling funding from OpenAI again in 2018. Musk had been the first bankroller for the corporate – which created ChatGPT – at its launch in 2015, showing on stage at an educational convention asserting $1 billion in funding.
Musk reportedly withdrew from OpenAI after he bid to take over operating it, worrying it had misplaced floor to Google in creating AI expertise, and was rejected by co-founder Sam Altman. Since then, he has taken potshots at OpenAI on Twitter, together with criticising a shift in the way it was funded when it went from being a not-for-profit firm to a for-profit agency with a $30 billion valuation.
“He’s the sort of person who has a lot of money and can afford to dump billions of dollars into vanity projects,” says Flick. Musk didn’t reply to a request to remark for this story.
Who is concerned?
The dozen named preliminary members of xAI’s staff embrace former staff of DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft Research and Tesla, in addition to researchers on the University of Toronto in Canada.
Although the staff is drawn from a various vary of corporations, its gender make-up is considerably much less various: all are males. “He’s brought together a bunch of men to work on understanding the universe, whatever that means, which is, as a philosopher… it’s just the cheapest version of armchair philosophy,” says Flick.
What will the corporate intention to do?
Besides making an attempt to know the universe, it appears doubtless that xAI will attempt to develop what Musk deems a safer, fairer AI system. Musk has beforehand signed a letter calling for a pause on the event of AI programs, citing security fears about their untrammelled advance.
“A lot of people who know Musk tend to think he’s well-intentioned and he’s worried about AI [being] developed in a wrong way, and he thinks he can do it in a safer way, but it’s hard to tell whether that’s sincere,” says Carissa Véliz on the University of Oxford. “It’s hard to separate what is genuine intention from what is an ego trip.”
Véliz factors out there may be hypocrisy in somebody who earlier this yr was saying AI growth ought to be paused now limbering up to participate within the race. “It seems like he’s doing exactly the opposite, further fuelling the arms race of AI,” says Véliz.
She can also be involved concerning the potential hyperlinks between xAI and one other Musk-backed mission he known as TruthGPT. “He said he was concerned about ChatGPT because it was being trained to be politically correct and he wanted a chatbot that would speak the truth – implying the truth was sexist and racist. That is incredibly concerning.”
Will it succeed?
That’s the billion-dollar query. “It’s impossible to tell,” says Véliz. “Succeeding in what? It’s not even clear what the objective is.”
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Source: www.newscientist.com