Elon Musk announced at X that his AI company xAI plans to make Grok available as open source this week. Grok is a chatbot that is said to be less politically biased than other AI models such as ChatGPT. What this means in concrete terms is still relatively unclear. However, one can assume that fewer guardrails and barriers also mean that it is easier to create fakes.
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So while other providers of AI models are working on ensuring that, for example, you cannot show election workers throwing ballots in the trash in a generated image, or a Joe Biden in the hospital, Grok could initially be less squeamish about such content in terms of text. Citizens' initiatives and AI providers are concerned about whether AI-generated fake news can influence elections or even endanger democracy.
Musk argues with OpenAI
It is no coincidence that Musk is now announcing that he wants to make Grok open source available. He has filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the company of no longer being open and thus deviating from its original mission. Musk co-founded OpenAI about ten years ago. But he left a few years later. As you can now read in published emails from back then, Musk wanted to pursue sole control or the development of the AI models as part of Tesla. He said there was no other way to get big enough to compete with Google.
OpenAI counters that Musk agreed when they decided to be less “open.” The research and research results should remain secret. Specifically, co-founder Ilya Sutskever wrote: “The closer we get to developing AI, the more sense it will make to be less open. The 'open' in OpenAI means that everyone should benefit from the fruits of AI after it is developed , but it's perfectly fine not to share the science…”
Increase interest in Grok
Grok's release could help spur interest in xAI's AI technology. So far this is rather small. It is also possible that the model will be further developed and improved by external developers. This decision by Musk is in line with Meta's approach to generative AI; Llama 2 is also open source and has gained popularity among developers due to its customization options.
But Musk's move to open source Grok is also sparking renewed discussions about the benefits and risks of giving everyone access to advanced AI models. While some experts say sharing AI models can increase transparency and robustness, others raise concerns about the potential dangers of unrestricted access to powerful AI technology.
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(emw)