“A lot of people are investing in it, it’s real and they’re excited about it,” said a person familiar with the mogul’s new project.
weeks after Elon Musk, together with the co-founder of AppleSteve Wozniak, and other experts, will sign a letter urging artificial intelligence (AI) laboratories to stop training these systems, this Friday it emerged that the tycoon has created an AI startup baptized as X.AI. which has already authorized the sale of 100 million shares.
The new company, registered on March 9 in the state of Nevada (USA), appears to bear the name of what the businessman had previously described as a “app for everything” called simply X, reports The Wall Street Journal citing some official documents. In addition, it was revealed that Musk is the only director of the company, while his right hand, Jared BirchallHe holds the position of secretary.
As part of his AI-related ambitions, the mogul has spent the past few months recruiting researchers with the aim of creating a rival company of OpenAI, which last November He launched the popular chatbot ChatGPT.
Musk, co-founder of OpenAI
Eight years ago, Musk co-founded OpenAI, but left the company in early 2018 after lose a power struggle against its current CEO, Sam Altman.
Recently, the tycoon has complained that ChatGPT has a political bias and has declared that he advocates for AI models that “seek more the truth”, although he has not clarified what that would mean.
Backgrounds for X.AI
Musk is also currently in talks with various investors from SpaceX and Tesla about the possibility of investing money in his new company, according to a source familiar with the negotiations.
“A lot of people are investing in it […] It’s real and they’re excited about it.” said the person to The Financial Times.
Thousands of graphics processors
The sources also revealed that for the new project, Musk procured thousands of high-powered graphics processors (GPUs) from Nvidia.
These high-end chips are necessary to build a system capable of processing huge amounts of content and producing human-like writing or realistic images, similar to the technology that powers ChatGPT, the outlet explains.
AI can “destroy civilization”
Meanwhile, the tycoon said Friday in statements to foxnews that AI “is more dangerous than bad aircraft design or poor maintenance of production or poor car manufacturing”, as long as it has the “potential” to “destroy civilization”.
Previously, the billionaire already warned on repeated occasions of the “profound risks to society and humanity” posed by “a race out of control” among various AI-powered programs such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, Microsoft’s Bing AI chatbot, and Alphabet’s Bard. Last week, it even called for a six-month break in development of all equally powerful systems.
