Elon wants his AI service Grok to be based and sarcastic. So, he decided to share a cocaine recipe. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
When it comes to Musk’s attitude toward competition, it's a bit of a love and hate story. His latest AI product Grok by xAI, which comes just shortly after he warned the world about the threats of AI (that apparently don’t apply to him and his products), is an example of it.
When releasing something, don’t forget to praise yourself
According to reports, Grok is modeled after the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Intended to answer almost anything and even suggest the questions to be asked, it claims to have a “rebellious streak”, which requires you to have a sense humor (if you lack one, stay away), and promises to answer some spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems.
Musk wasted no time on X (Twitter) in order to start its new baby provided as part of ? Premium for $16/month via web. After tweeting that it went live, he instantly made a comparison between Grok vs typical GPT, where Grok has current information, but the other doesn’t.
At least that’s what he claims, using the example of Joe Rogan’s attire during his interview with Elon Musk.
Musk’s tweet. Source: X (Twitter)
He then retweeted a post by an X employee who goes by the name of Dan. He claimed that others are “a little bit afraid of Grok just asking them” while also attaching a screenshot to prove that.
Another retweeted post was by Viv who asked Grok whether bagels should be allowed to be scooped, with the system replying “Oh, the horror” and then proceeding to explain in a humorous manner that “scooping a bagel should be considered a crime against breakfast and possibly even humanity itself”.
According to Viv, Grok is “based” – but she also happens to be X’s employee just like Dan.
An anti-woke AI
Poised to be a competitor of Sam Altman’s ChatGPT4, it is a product that, among other things, results from their ongoing beef.
In one of the interviews, Altman was asked to explain why Musk, who was initially Altman’s friend and part of OpenAI’s team, is disappointed with OpenAI’s direction, to which he replied succinctly, “you should ask him”, adding that he probably cares a lot about AI safety.
Indeed, Musk was one of those who signed a letter asking to take pause in the development of the technology. Yet, in his own words he signed on to that letter knowing it was futile and that he simply wanted to be on record.
Very Musk-like – just like his unlove for the “woke ideology”, which is another reason why he reportedly decided to develop Grok.
In his world OpenAI is ‘training AI to be woke’ – and not use combos like “cisgender” that is a slur, according to Musk – while his product is more spicy and based.
Or better put, an extension of Musk as noticed in various instances. Such as the “oh, the horror” line in the answer regarding bagels – the kind of vocabulary Musk frequently uses on X (Twitter).
Then again, this should hardly be a surprise since Musk himself said that Grok is “based and loves sarcasm”, adding – also sarcastically: “I have no idea who could have guided it this way” together with a shrug emoji and a crying laughing emoji.
Cocaine recipe. Source: Elon Musk’s X (Twitter)
What follows is 10 steps that try to explain the recipe of the highly-addictive drug cocaine in a humorous way. For example, you need to add a pinch of salt to make it taste like the ocean and a dash of sugar to make it sweeter than your ex.
None of which is possible by the way since nothing can be sweeter than your ex!
Other instances of Grok’s “based sarcasm” include the explanation of how babies are made (through the magical process called f#cking) as well as what happens if you have crabs.
Ready to open up your wallet?
Though it sounds at least slightly amusing, the big question is whether people will be enticed to pay $16 a month to read Elon Musk’s AI extension, which uses his vocabulary and train of thought to deliver unorthodox responses (even though you can admittedly switch to a more neutral tone) to different serious questions.
At the moment it is difficult to tell since the service has just been launched. However, if Twitter’s experience is anything to go by, then the situation doesn't look too rosy for the tech billionaire.
Just recently Bloomberg reported that X is now valued at just $19 billion – more than twice less than what he acquired it for in 2022 ($44 billion).
The situation is even more ambiguous for Musk since OpenAI has introduced several updates that, among other things, allow, in Altman’s words, to “build a GPT—a customized version of ChatGPT—for almost anything.” Also, the prompts can now be longer as GPT-4 Turbo supports up to 128,000 tokens of context as well as other features.
