Elon Musk plans AI startup to compete with OpenAI – 04/15/2023 – Tech

Elon Musk plans to launch an artificial intelligence startup to compete with ChatGPT creator OpenAI. The billionaire is looking to join Silicon Valley’s race to build artificial intelligence-generating systems.

The Tesla and Twitter owner is assembling a team of AI researchers and engineers, people familiar with the tech entrepreneur’s plans said.

Musk is also in discussions with several SpaceX and Tesla investors about the possibility of investing in this new venture, said a person with direct knowledge of the conversations. “A lot of people are excited and invested in this.”

Musk incorporated a company called X.AI on March 9, according to Nevada business records. He is the company’s sole director, whose secretary is listed as Jared Birchall, the former Morgan Stanley banker who manages Musk’s fortune.

Musk recently changed Twitter’s name to X Corp in company filings, as part of his plans to create an “all-in-one app” under the “X” brand.

For the new project, Musk secured thousands of Nvidia’s high-powered GPU processors, people with knowledge of the move said. GPUs are the high-quality chips needed for his intent to build an advanced language model—AI systems capable of consuming massive amounts of content and producing human-like writing or lifelike images, similar to the technology behind ChatGPT.

In late March, Musk spearheaded a letter, signed by thousands of other tech figures, calling for a pause in the development of GPT-like models due to security concerns.

The billionaire’s possible entry into the generative AI market will add yet another venture to his diversified investment portfolio. That includes managing Twitter and Tesla, as well as founding $137 billion rocket maker SpaceX, neurotech firm Neuralink, and tunneling startup Boring Company.

Musk has been recruiting engineers from leading AI labs, including DeepMind, according to people with knowledge of his plans. They say the billionaire began exploring the idea of ​​a competing company earlier this year in response to OpenAI’s rapid progress.

Musk hired Igor Babuschkin, a former DeepMind employee, and about half a dozen other engineers. The Information previously reported on Babuschkin’s initial conversations with Musk.

The new company would allow Musk to take on OpenAI, the company he co-founded in 2015 and is now backed by Microsoft. He left the startup’s board three years ago citing conflicts with management — this included AI security issues, according to two people involved with OpenAI at the time. Shortly after, the organization turned into a for-profit startup and received a US$ 1 billion (R$ 4.94 billion) investment from Microsoft.

Since then, Musk has spoken out frequently about his fears about the broader existential threats posed by AI systems. He also publicly criticized OpenAI for becoming, in his opinion, less transparent and too business-oriented in the quest for artificial general intelligence that would be capable of performing any intellectual task possible for humans.

Musk is particularly concerned that models like GPT-4, OpenAI’s latest release, could be used to spread false material and spur political trends.

During an interview with the BBC on Twitter Spaces this week, Musk was asked about a Business Insider report that Twitter had bought up to 10,000 GPUs from Nvidia, “It seems like everybody and their dog is buying GPUs at this point,” Musk said. “Twitter and Tesla are certainly buying GPUs.”

People familiar with Musk’s thinking say his new AI venture is separate from his other companies, though the billionaire could use Twitter content to train his language model and leverage Tesla for computing capabilities.

While the AI ​​team’s exact position in Musk’s corporate empire is unclear, he recently transferred Twitter Inc, which he bought for $44 billion last year, to a new parent company, X Corp.

During this week’s Twitter Spaces session, Musk praised Tesla’s homegrown supercomputer Dojo, which the electric car maker uses to train its Autopilot self-driving system.

“I think there’s a lot of potential there with Dojo that people don’t realize,” Musk said. He hinted that Dojo could be opened up to other companies as a service, similar to how Amazon leases its vast server infrastructure like AWS.

A venture into generative AI backed by Musk would tap into a popular, well-funded market. Tech giants like Microsoft, Google and Amazon are struggling with startups like OpenAI, Anthropic, Adept and StabilityAI, which together have raised billions of dollars in recent months.

When Musk left OpenAI in 2018, the public explanation for the split was that he wanted to focus on Tesla, which also invests in AI.

“Tesla was competing for some of the same people as OpenAI and I didn’t agree with some of the things the OpenAI team wanted to do,” Musk wrote on Twitter in 2019. “Best to leave on good terms,” ​​he added.