Elon Musk has been a vocal critic of ChatGPT.Credit:AP
Musk was involved in the creation of OpenAI,the highest-profile AI startup and developer of ChatGPT. Buthe has frequently and publicly criticised OpenAI since he left the board in 2018,especially after it created a for-profit arm the following year. He has said he believes it to be “effectively controlled by Microsoft.” Microsoft has invested some $US13 billion ($19.2 billion) into OpenAI.
Despite his work in AI,Musk has expressed deep reservations about the technology. The billionaire was among a group of researchers and tech industry leaders who in March called for developers to pause the training of powerful AI models.
The 12 men listed on the website as of Wednesday morning (including Musk) include Jimmy Ba,an assistant professor at the University of Toronto who studied under AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton,and Christian Szegedy,who spent years as a research scientist working on AI at Google.
Though Musk is a frequent critic of San Francisco,the xAI website says that the company is “actively recruiting experienced engineers and researchers” to work “in the Bay Area.” So far,most AI development has been concentrated in Silicon Valley.
Musk and Jared Birchall,who operates Musk’s family office,incorporated a business called X.AI in March,according to a Nevada state filing with the Secretary of State.
In April,theFinancial Times reported that Musk was holding discussions with Tesla and Space Exploration Technologies Corp. investors about helping fund an AI startup,citing unidentified people familiar with the matter. The billionaire has acquired thousands of processors from Nvidia Corp. for the new project,the paper said.