Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI will open-source the code for its snarky Grok chatbot “this week,” its billionaire founder said.
The move makes Grok’s source code freely available — and thus able to be redistributed and modified — in what’s seen as Musk’s latest jab at rival OpenAI’s popular ChatGPT, the Wall Street Journal earlier reported.
After making the announcement on X in the early hours of Monday, other users chimed in, saying OpenAI should do the same, to which Musk replied: “OpenAI is a lie.”
One Reddit user surmised in a thread called “r/OpenAI” that ChatGPT is still a closed-source application becauase “OpenAI is somewhat concerned about the possible risks associated with making ChatGPT…fully open-source.”
“By keeping the code under wraps, they aim to prevent malicious usage and other unintended consequences that could arise if it were to fall into the wrong hands,” the post added.
Musk’s fierce criticism of the Sam Altman-run AI giant has heightened since earlier this month when the Tesla and SpaceX chief sued OpenAI, Altman and co-founder Greg Brockman, alleging that they have led the firm to “radically depart from its original mission” by prioritizing profit over humanity.
OpenAI responded in a blog post, saying, “We intend to move to dismiss all of Elon’s claims.”
Musk was a member of OpenAI’s founding team from the inception of its research lab in 2015 until 2018, when he fell out with Altman — reportedly over disagreements with the deal Altman struck with Microsoft, marking a transition away from the company’s purely nonprofit roots.
He went on to launch his own AI firm, xAI, in July 2023.
Come early November, it unveilied large-language model Grok, which has a unique design intended “to answer questions with a bit of wit.”
xAI said at the time that the purpose of Grok is to “assist humanity in its quest for understanding and knowledge,” and would be available to X’s Premium+ subscribers to do just that after a series of beta testing.
The tool was modeled after “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” a comedy science fiction franchise by Douglas Adams that features a book of the same name claiming to serve as “the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom.”
After Musk demoed Grok’s injection of sarcasm in its responses with screenshots shared to X, Altman bashed the snarky chatbot’s responses as ridden with “cringey boomer humor.”
Representatives for OpenAI did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The Post has also sought comment from Musk at X, Tesla and SpaceX.
