Elon Musk has announced the debut of ‘Grok’, the inaugural AI model from his startup xAI, which was established alongside Musk’s ownership of the social media platform previously known as Twitter. This new AI is poised to rival offerings from established players such as OpenAI, Google, and Microsoft, and aims to incorporate Musk’s distinctive sense of humor often reflected in his postings on X. Currently, Grok is being evaluated by a select group of users and will only be accessible to subscribers of X Premium+, as noted by the CEO of Tesla.
In a blog update released on Sunday, xAI revealed that it is initiating the rollout of the Grok prototype to a “limited number of users” in the United States before a broader launch. The startup has indicated plans to introduce new features and capabilities in the upcoming months, and interested individuals can sign up for a waitlist on the xAI website to experience the Grok chatbot. Musk confirmed that Grok will be available through both X and a dedicated app.
As soon as it’s out of early beta, xAI’s Grok system will be available to all X Premium+ subscribers
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 4, 2023
The xAI team has highlighted several capabilities of the Grok chatbot, including its ability to retrieve real-time information from X and make suggestions for user inquiries. However, they have also cautioned that Grok possesses a “rebellious streak” and tends to respond with “a bit of wit.” The development process of the chatbot spanned two months, according to the company.
Grok operates on xAI’s newly developed large language model (LLM), known as Grok-1. Though foundational work began four months ago, the LLM has undergone multiple iterations, achieving a performance score of 63.2 percent on the HumanEval coding task and a 73 percent score on the Massive Multitask Language Understanding (MMLU) dataset.
No specific timeline has been provided regarding when Grok will become available to all users; however, Musk made it clear through X that access will be limited to paying subscribers. Once publicly launched, X Premium+ subscribers, who pay approximately $16 (around Rs. 1,300) monthly, will have the opportunity to utilize the chatbot via the social media platform.
