[linkpost] Elon Musk plans AI start-up to rival OpenAI

post by Hatfield (aieathoughts) · 2023-04-15T19:06:09.223Z · LW · GW · 11 comments

This is a link post for https://www.ft.com/content/2a96995b-c799-4281-8b60-b235e84aefe4

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Musk incorporated a company named X.AI on March 9, according to Nevada business records.

 

For the new project, Musk has secured thousands of high-powered GPU processors from Nvidia, said people with knowledge of the move.

 

Musk is recruiting engineers from top AI labs including DeepMind, according to those with knowledge of his plans, who said he began to explore the idea of a rival company earlier this year in response to the rapid progress of OpenAI. 

Musk has brought on Igor Babuschkin, a former DeepMind employee, and roughly half a dozen other engineers. The Information previously reported Babuschkin’s early talks with Musk. 

The new company would allow Musk to take on OpenAI, the Microsoft-backed group that he co-founded in 2015. He left the board three years later amid clashes with its management, including over attitudes to AI safety, according to two people who were involved in OpenAI at the time. Shortly afterwards, the organisation morphed into a for-profit start-up and raised a $1bn investment from Microsoft. 

Since then, Musk has become increasingly vocal in his fears of broader existential threats from AI systems. He has also publicly criticised OpenAI for becoming, in his view, less transparent and too commercially minded in its pursuit of advanced AI. Musk is particularly concerned about the threat of models such as GPT-4, OpenAI’s latest release, to spew falsehoods and show political bias.

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