It appears that Elon Musk’s latest artificial intelligence initiative, xAI, is almost here after months of rumors. The well-known social media virtuoso and CEO of Tesla recently announced on Twitter and X that his artificial intelligence company will release its first model tomorrow, November 4.
Since it’s being made available to a “select group” only, this is a beta phase of sorts; however, Musk did not elaborate on the criteria used in the selection process. Will the AI model be exclusive to “VIPs” like, um, Tucker Carlson, Chaya Raichik, or the unstoppable Catturd, or will it be a random drop? It is up to speculation.
With regards to his AI, Musk is promising big things, saying that “in some important respects, it is the best that currently exists.” It will face competition from major players like OpenAI, Google, Meta, and many more, so we’ll have to wait and see what “important respects” set it apart from the competition.
Since the stated goal of xAI is, quite literally, “to understand the true nature of the universe,” the high hopes were made from the beginning. Asking a chatbot what hotel to stay at or what to make with two cucumbers and a bag of spinach is a far way from that. We’ll see if Musk can successfully unearth the true nature of reality given his recent unending string of problems, which include decreasing Tesla sales and, you know, that whole Twitter thing.
This doesn’t seem to be a coincidence in terms of timing. This week, Elon Musk gave a speech at the first-ever UK AI Safety Summit, where both the US and the UK pledged investments in AI safeguards. In addition, Musk might be trying to deflate the company’s balloon because OpenAI is hosting its inaugural DevDay on November 6. In addition to being competitors, Musk and Sam Altman were the first board members of OpenAI in 2015, but their disagreements quickly resulted in a divestiture.
Either way, it will only be a matter of hours before we discover the actual nature of the cosmos. If there is still popcorn after tomorrow, I’ll make it. A fantastic time!
