Hey everybody, welcome back to the Elon Musk podcast. This is a show where we discuss the critical crossroads, the shape SpaceX. Tesla X, The Boring Company, and Neuralink and I'm your host Will Walden if you want uninterrupted. Episodes of the. Elon Musk Podcast. Please go to club. Elon.supercast.com to find out how there's a link in the show notes. Elon Musk has announced that his AI venture Xai will release its ChatGPT competitor Grok to the open source public domain this week.
It's a strategic move by Musk, who has consistently criticized Open AI's profit driven use of AI technology, and it marks a shift in AI development and accessibility for a large language model like Grok. And by open sourcing. Grok XAI is set to join the ranks of companies like Meta and Mistral, which have already made their AI models freely available for modification and use by everybody.
And the decision to make Grok open source comes on the heels of Musk's legal action against Open AIA company HE.
Co founded but departed. From in 2018 and Musk's lawsuit accuses Open AI of straying from its nonprofit roots and original mission, alleging that it has instead pursued profit maximization, particularly following its collaboration with Microsoft. Now the legal confrontation has sparked a big debate in the tech community and what are the merits and the risks of open sourcing AI technologies as opposed to keeping them closed sourced and for profit?
While Musk. 'S Critique of Open AIS transformation centers around it's shift from an open source nonprofit organization to what he perceives as a profit focused entity closely aligned with Microsoft. How? According to Musk, this contradicts open AI stated commitment to developing AI that benefits humanity at large, the lawsuit, and Musk's vocal criticisms. Highlight the growing.
Tensions between ideals of open innovation and the realities of funding and profiting from advanced AI research. Now, myself, I'm an open source kind of guy. I'm a developer. I've been developed apps for companies that have gotten millions and millions of uses, and I've open sourced some of my technology that large corporations have used. So I'm a proponent of open source. I'm also a proponent of
capitalism and making money. And so I understand the two points that are being discussed here, but the announcement of Grok's open sourcing was made by Moscone X. Of course, it used to be Twitter, and it's challenging Open AI directly and other leading AI developers.
And by offering Grok as an open source tool, Xai aims to democratize access to advanced AI, potentially fostering a more inclusive, innovative field of AI development that's not confined by the commercial interest of a few dominant players. It opens up the playing field
now. The debate over open sourcing AI is not new, but has gained fresh momentum in light of Musk's lawsuit against open AI, and proponents argue that Open Access to AI technologies can accelerate innovation and application across diverse fields. However, there's significant concerns about the potential misuse of open source AI, including fears that it could be exploited for harmful purposes such as terrorism or the development of uncontrollable AI entities.
Now Musk's vision for AI governance includes the creation of a third party oversight body, a concept he advocated for at least last year's AI safety summit in the UK. And such an organization would monitor AI development across the industry, providing a check against potentially dangerous or unethical applications of the tech. This proposal reflects Musk's ongoing concerns about ethics and safety implications of unchecked AI.
Now Musk and Xai and also Grok were driven by his desire for the alternative to the AI development models pursued by Open AI and Google and Microsoft and larger companies. And Musk aims for XAI to embody a commitment to maximum truth seeking AI, he says, a goal that underpins the decision to open source Grok and engage a wider community. This development and application.
Now, Musk's position on open source AI was further clarified in a conversation with Lex Friedman last November, though, where he lamented the development of open AI from its original open source ethos. Scathing and his remarks under score this tension between the fundamental principles of open AI and its current operational model, which Musk's perceived as overly profit driven and restrictive in terms of access
to AI technologies. Now this lawsuit against Open AI presents a pivotal moment in Musk's long standing relationship with the organization. Having been a founding member himself, Musk's departure from the board in 2018 was a huge turning point for the company, leading to his current adversarial stance. His legal challenge raises important questions, though, about the commitments and responsibility of AI organizations and their alignment with broader societal
interests. Open A is response to Musk's lawsuit has been to assert its continued dedication to developing AI in a matter that benefits humanity as a whole.
The organization argues that the scale resources required for advanced AI development necessitated the shift for a for profit model, a decision that Musk was purportedly in agreement with in 2017. Now this defense highlights the complex balance between Musk's ideals of open sourcing AI tech, but also the necessity, the absolute necessity of the money that you need to buy these chipsets. The NVIDIA GPU is that you need to drive the way that these
things function. It costs a lot of money, and sometimes open sourcing technology doesn't make you any money, and most of the time that's the case. Now to make money. Open AI has different business models, but Elon Musk thinks they should be completely open and no privatization of it, and no way to capitalize on the finances of the people like myself who pay for Open AI. And the legal battle between Musk and Open AI is also complicated by the definitions and expectations surrounding
artificial general intelligence. Proves that Open AI has deviated from its mission involving open sourcing everything, and they're demonstrating that ChatGPT 4 or its successors constitute AGI, a challenging task given that the current state of AI technology and the evolving understanding of what actually AGI entails.
Now, the controversy surrounding Open AI's direction and Musk's lawsuit could have broader implications on the AI industry, potentially affecting Open AI's market position and the trust of its customers and partners. I don't think it's going to really do that much, though I I think they're going to be competitors. In a weird way, I think Elon is more competitive than Sam Altman about this.
Sam knows his role. He knows what's going on and working with Microsoft, he almost has an infinite amount of money and capital coming into the organization, so we won't really have to worry about that. And the recent turmoil within Open AI, including the temporary dismissal of Sam Altman, has already raised concerns amongst stakeholders about the organization's stability and the governance. But Sam is back back on the board.
And amidst these developments, Musk continues to use his platform on X to critique Open AI, of course, and advocate for a more open approach to AI development. His interactions with users on the platform reflects strong opinions on the need for transparency and accessibility in AI, as well as his skepticisms towards Open AIS current trajectory. Now, I want you to think about this for a moment. Do you think Elon is kind of mad about being booted from Open AI because he he's gone in 2018?
That's something you have to think about. You can't just sit back and accept things the way that they are. There's really no reason for Elon to lie to us, right? But could he be upset that he's not part of Open AI now? Seeing all of their current success and how far ahead they are than a lot of the other AI technologies out there? There's a possibility. I just want to keep that open, make sure that you keep an open to mind about these things because you never know what's
going on behind the scenes. And Grok. And the way that Elon is expressing that he wants to take everything open source now, which he didn't before, he didn't say anything about that before, Why would he do that? So I just think about that. Could it be the reason? Could be maybe, maybe he likes the idea of open AI. You know, ChatGPT is not open for a paying customer, it's not open. You can do numerous things with a paid account. ChatGPT is open to the public.
You can use it whenever you want to. There are limitations, but I mean, it's a free tool for everybody to use. But they don't open source their code, and that's where Elon is different than Open AI. He's going to open source the code, apparently. We don't know how much he's going to open source though. So he could open source 100% of this and give everybody a free license to do whatever they want with Grok. Or he could open source certain segments of the code if he does
the certain segments. And it's not really open source in my opinion as an open source developer myself. If you're going to open source something, open source the whole thing, make a tool for somebody, make the whole tool available to everybody. So the way that he open sources, this is going to be a very, very interesting tell on what he's interested in. Could he be just opening, open sourcing, something to throw in Sam Altman and open the eyes face? There's a possibility.
Is he spiteful? Is he a spiteful person? That's up to you to decide. But there's a there's going to be some interesting things happening around Open AI and Grok in the near future. Because I mean any open source competitor to ChatGPT is going to be welcomed for everybody. If somebody could build off of Grok also, that's the other thing. If he open sources in some certain licenses, open sourcing, you can make derivatives.
But you also have to make sure that eventually if Grok and Xai go private again, you take some of your money that you make from this thing 'cause you could open like an open source project.
If it's fully open source, you can do whatever you want to with it. You can make as much money as you want to from it. But if he rescinds the license at some point, there's a possibility you have to pay the guy or you have to pay Xai for the tools that you built and the money that you made from it. So we have to really be careful of these open source projects and which parts of them that
he's open sourcing. So we'll have more information about the parts that he's open sourcing in the future. Of course, it's a strategic move, though. It could reshape the dynamics of all AI development. There's alternative models now that prioritize accessibility and community involvement over control and profit. It's a potential to catalyze a new wave of innovation in AI. But also Meta has done this before too. Meta's open sourcing most of the stuff.
So you know how much is going to change everything? We're not 100% sure, but there's tensions between Musk and Open AI. Power and control. It's going to be in the hands of tech giants now. Sam Altman? You know, a rich guy. Elon Musk, super rich guy. They're tech giants. There's no difference between X AI if it's closed sourced and open AI if it's closed sourced or if X AI goes open source. It has to go full open source or it's not real true open source. So everything should be open source.
The language model, that's that's up for debate. But the technology running the language model, if you supply your own language model, that's OK in my eyes. So it's got to be an interesting next 3-4 weeks. That's supposed to happen sometime this month, and the outcome of Musk's lawsuit against Opening Eye and the impact of Grok's open sourcing remain to be seen, though It's going to happen in the next few weeks and we'll be here for you. Hey, thank you so much for listening today.
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