Tech billionaire Elon Musk on Monday announced plans about his artificial intelligence (AI) company, xAI, and that he will open-source "Grok" chatbot which has been designed to compete with OpenAI's ChatGPT. Musk stated that Grok will be open-sourced and made available to the public later this week, said a report by news agency Reuters.
During a podcast episode featuring Lex Fridman, Musk expressed his appreciation for the concept of open-source AI, the report added. The billionaire's startup had introduced the AI model to a select group of users in November of last year.
"This week, @xAI will open source Grok," Musk said in a post on X, the social media firm.
This comes amid Musk recently stating that his social media venture, X, formerly Twitter, is contemplating eliminating the display of likes and repost counts on posts on the platform. Additionally, Musk mentioned that X is nearing approval for a money transmitter license in New York, with expectations of obtaining it within the next few months, the media has reported.
Renowned X user, DogeDesigner, shared the news that X is contemplating the removal of like and repost counts from the feed, clarifying that these metrics will still be visible upon tapping into a post. X boss Musk replied to the post by writing: “definitely happening”.
To recall, earlier in December, Musk's AI platform, xAI, revealed the expansion of its generative AI chatbot, Grok AI, to include India and 46 additional countries, such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Singapore, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Notably, Musk's social media company X, formerly known as Twitter, also updated its users on the phased introduction of Grok AI chatbot access to Premium+ subscribers in the US. The announcement regarding the global rollout was initially made on December 14, and later, the AI tool was made accessible to anyone willing to subscribe to X Premium+ for up to Rs 2,600 per month, as access to Grok is exclusive to subscribers of X Premium+.
It should be noted that priced at Rs 2,299 per month or Rs 22,900 annually, Grok AI's subscription fee far surpasses that of ChatGPT Plus when accessed through a smartphone (priced at $20 or roughly Rs 1,650 per month -- nearly double). However, for users opting to subscribe via a desktop and availing of the X Premium+ package, the monthly cost is reduced to Rs 1,300, with an annual commitment of Rs 13,600.