Elon Musk establishes x.AI, aiming to snipe OpenAI or tell a new story of capital?

Elon Musk creates x.AI, targeting OpenAI or shaping a fresh narrative of capital?

Author/Zhang Yuge

Produced by/Top Finance

Musk unexpectedly made a big move again.

On July 13th, Musk announced on Twitter that he had established an artificial intelligence company, x.AI.

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The company’s official website shows that the x.AI team is led by Musk, with members from DeepMind, OpenAI, Google Research, Microsoft Research, Tesla, and the University of Toronto. x.AI’s goal is to understand the true nature of the universe, which is a somewhat difficult goal for an AI startup to comprehend, but it aligns with Musk’s grand narrative. SpaceX’s goal is to make humans a multi-planet species, and Tesla aspires to find a path to sustainable development to feed the 8 billion people on Earth.

Some key members of x.AI have already made outstanding contributions to artificial intelligence research and development. For example, Jimmy Ba is an assistant professor at the University of Toronto and was trained by the famous AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton, who has been leading Google’s AI program until his resignation. Christian Szegedy, as a research scientist at Google, has been working on research projects related to the core of artificial intelligence for many years.

x.AI’s team page also lists Dan Hendrycks as an advisor. Hendrycks is the head of the Center for AI Safety, an organization dedicated to mitigating the threats posed by artificial intelligence. He gained fame because of an open letter demanding government regulation of AI before it destroys humanity, and it is worth mentioning that Musk was also one of the co-signers of this letter.

x.AI is headquartered in the San Francisco Bay Area, which has become a center for AI research and development. The company’s website indicates that it is actively recruiting experienced engineers and researchers to join the team. This probably means that those who join Musk’s new venture will be welcomed with open arms and will not suffer the fate of layoffs that occurred after Musk took over Twitter.

01. Inevitable “Zhenxiang Law”

Prior to the establishment of x.AI, Musk expressed concerns about the risks of advancing artificial intelligence technology too quickly without sufficient safeguards.

In March of this year, Musk and AI developers and technology industry leaders jointly signed a letter calling for a pause in training powerful AI models until there is a better understanding of their impact.

Musk has a complex history with artificial intelligence. It is well known that Musk is one of the co-founders of OpenAI. However, he left OpenAI’s board of directors in 2018 and withdrew a large amount of sponsorship. At that time, Fortune magazine reported that the reason for his departure was a “potential conflict of interest” between Tesla’s autonomous driving technology and OpenAI. There were also reports that Musk had proposed to personally manage the operation of OpenAI before leaving, but his proposal was rejected.

It is not difficult to understand why Musk has been criticizing OpenAI and even targeting its biggest supporters, Microsoft and Bill Gates, after leaving OpenAI.

What caused Musk’s attitude to change again in a short period of time?

We can draw some conclusions from Musk’s tweets. Musk stated on his Twitter that x.AI aims to build a good AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) and has the vision of understanding the true nature of the universe. He believes that such AGI will be friendly to humans rather than destroy them. The establishment of x.AI will also compete with companies like OpenAI and Google to prevent one company from monopolizing the AI field.

From Musk’s perspective, we can see that the establishment of x.AI corresponds to his own understanding of the future development of AI, and it is also a “ticket” for himself not to miss the future, preventing himself from not getting a share in the AI field after the formation of industry monopoly. The more straightforward conclusion is that Musk does not hate artificial intelligence itself, but rather hates that he is not the one who possesses the highest technology in artificial intelligence.

Musk currently leads six major companies, including Tesla, SpaceX, Twitter, Neuralink, The Boring Company, and now x.AI. Tesla, led by Musk, has done a lot of work in artificial intelligence and automation, making it a strategic focus for the electric vehicle manufacturer. Musk can fully utilize his multiple business investment projects to build x.AI.

02, x.AI: Musk’s new story?

However, it was unexpected that Musk suddenly announced the establishment of x.AI.

Musk previously mentioned that if the emergence of AGI is inevitable, he faces two choices: either just an observer or a participant. “As an observer, we don’t have much influence on the outcome, but as a participant, I believe we can create a competitive alternative,” he said. x.AI is trying to build a “good AGI” to replace Microsoft, Google, and OpenAI.

x.AI will closely cooperate with his other companies, such as Twitter and Tesla. x.AI will use publicly available data on Twitter to train its AI models. Musk also accused many AI companies of illegally using Twitter data for training, causing Twitter’s service outage a week ago, and as a result, Twitter had to take measures to limit the number of tweets viewed.

In terms of cooperation with Tesla, Musk said that x.AI will cooperate with Tesla in terms of chips, and perhaps also in AI software. He believes that cooperation with Tesla will have a mutually beneficial effect on accelerating Tesla’s autonomous driving capabilities.

According to a document submitted to the California court on April 4th, Twitter has merged with a company called “X Corp”, and Twitter is now “no longer” an independent company. This means that the name Twitter now only represents a social networking platform, no longer being regarded as an independent company.

These formal documents submitted to the California court also pointed out that “X Corp” is a subsidiary of “X Holdings Corp”, the future parent company of all of Musk’s current companies, including Neuralink, SLianGuaiceX, Tesla, and The Boring ComLianGuainy. It may also include the newly established x.AI in the future. Such a structure is reminiscent of Alphabet, the parent company of Google and YouTube.

It is certain that Musk has planned to create a conglomerate holding company codenamed “X” that integrates AI technology, and AI may be the key to realizing this dream.

03. Conclusion

Musk has always been a controversial figure, with profound influence in the fields of technology, business, and culture.

As the founder of Tesla and SLianGuaiceX, Musk has achieved great success in the fields of technology and business. As the CEO of multiple companies, Musk is also widely regarded as a person with great leadership abilities.

Whether the newly established x.AI can replicate Musk’s past successes and lead AI into the next era remains to be seen. However, judging from Musk’s imaginative yet cautious attitude towards AI development, he is trying to find a new balance in the field of artificial intelligence, one that can allow technological progress to serve human needs and find a balance between pursuing truth and avoiding bias.

Jokingly speaking, his establishment of x.AI may be an attempt to save humanity from being controlled by AI for the second time, with the first being his involvement in the founding of OpenAI.

Reference articles:

Why does Musk call for a pause in AI training?

“Super App”: Why does Musk want to turn Twitter into “X” company?

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