Elon Musk, CEO of xAI, announced that the company will open-source Grok, its chatbot rivaling ChatGPT, this week. This decision comes shortly after Musk sued OpenAI, alleging that the Microsoft-backed startup strayed from its open-source origins.
Grok, launched by xAI last year, offers features such as access to “real-time” information and is accessible to subscribers of X’s $16 monthly service.
Musk, a co-founder of OpenAI, intended it as a counterbalance to Google. However, Musk claims that OpenAI, obligated to make its technology “freely available” to the public, has become closed-source and prioritizes profits for Microsoft, leading to the recent lawsuit.
The lawsuit has sparked discussions among technologists and investors regarding the value of open-source AI. Vinod Khosla, an early investor in OpenAI, criticized the lawsuit as a distraction from achieving AGI and its benefits.
Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, accused Khosla of attempting to curtail open-source AI research, emphasizing the positive impact of new technologies on human well-being.
The decision to open-source Grok aligns xAI with other companies like Meta and French startup Mistral, which have made their chatbot codes public.
Musk has a history of supporting open-source initiatives. Tesla, under his leadership, has open-sourced numerous patents, promoting collaborative innovation. Similarly, X, previously known as Twitter, shared some of its algorithms with the public last year.
