Elon Musk might be looking to get in the AI arms race by setting up a whole new company.
Drum roll: The name of the company is X.AI and it's been incorporated in the American state of Nevada, according to a filing dated 9 March 2023.
Musk will serve as the director of the newly incorporated entity
The filing also lists his right-hand man Jared Birchall as X.AI's secretary
X's and O's? The news comes close on the heels of Twitter reportedly being killed and reincarnated as X Corp.
In a US court filing dated 4 April, the social media company discretely submitted that it "has been merged into X Corp. and no longer exists."
The development was seen as a step towards Musk's plans of transforming Twitter into an "everything app", something that he's wanted since the takeover last year.
Why it matters: There is a lot of momentum in the AI space currently, giving rise to fears that the world is not prepared for it. With that in mind, could the entry of X.AI turn the industry into one swirl of a mess? Or would it end up actually being good news from a competition standpoint?
This article is a part of 'AI Told You So', a special series by The Quint that explores how Artificial Intelligence is changing our present and how it stands to shape our future. Click here to view the full collection of stories in the series.
On the DL: Though The Wall Street Journal was the first to break the news about X.AI, rumours about Musk venturing into the AI space have been doing the rounds for some time now.
The billionaire bought thousands of graphics processing units (GPUs) just a few days ago, according to Business Insider.
However, when Musk was asked about his million-dollar purchase by a Twitter user, he replied that "it seems like everyone and their dog is buying GPUs at this point."
According to the Financial Times, Musk sought funding from Tesla and SpaceX investors to set up a company that rivals ChatGPT-creator Open AI.
Speaking of Open AI, Musk actually co-founded the startup that's currently valued at billions of dollars, before cutting ties in 2018. More recently, he was one of the signatories of an open letter that called for a pause on "giant AI experiments" like GPT-4.
Pump the brakes: "We call on all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4,” the open letter published by the nonprofit Future of Life Institute read.
“AI labs and independent experts should use this pause to jointly develop and implement a set of shared safety protocols for advanced AI design and development that are rigorously audited and overseen by independent outside experts,” the letter further read.
“These protocols should ensure that systems adhering to them are safe beyond a reasonable doubt," it added.
Besides Musk, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Skype co-founder Jaan Tallinn, American politician Andrew Yang, and author Yuval Noah Harari as well as a number of AI researchers have endorsed the contents of the letter.
Another group called the Centre for AI and Digital Policy lodged a complaint with the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC), saying Open AI should stop launching new GPT models because of unfair and deceptive trade practices.
Meanwhile, Amazon has also thrown its hat into the generative AI ring with the debut of 'Bedrock' – a base layer that will help build and support apps generated using pretrained models from startups including AI21 Labs, Anthropic and Stability AI. However, it is currently limited for preview.
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