Elon Musk’s AI startup, xAI, is set to release Grok, its chatbot as an open-source software this week.
This move comes after Musk filed a lawsuit against OpenAI, accusing the Microsoft-backed startup of straying from its original commitment to open-source principles.
Grok, introduced by xAI last year, provides users with “real-time access” to information and has been accessible to subscribers of X’s services. However, it is unclear if it will be free for all users when it becomes open-source.
Musk, one of the co-founders and early backers of OpenAI alleged that Sam Altman and Greg Brockman persuaded him to establish and finance the startup in 2015.
The lawsuit claimed that the initial agreement required OpenAI to make its technology freely available to the public to counter Google’s competitive threat.
The lawsuit, filed in a court in San Francisco late Thursday, February 29 says that OpenAI has shifted to a for-profit model focused on commercializing its Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) research after partnering with Microsoft. According to sources, Microsoft had invested about $13 billion into the startup.
“In reality, however, OpenAI, Inc. has been transformed into a closed-source de facto subsidiary of the largest technology company in the world: Microsoft. Under its new board, it is not just developing but is actually refining an AGI to maximize profits for Microsoft, rather than for the benefit of humanity,” the lawsuit added. “This was a stark betrayal of the Founding Agreement.”
According to the lawsuit, Musk donated over $44 million to the nonprofit between 2016 and September 2020, making him the primary contributor for the initial years.
Although Musk stepped down from OpenAI’s board in 2018, he declined a stake in the for-profit division of the startup, citing principled reasons.
This lawsuit sparked debate among technologists and investors regarding the value of open-source AI. Vinod Khosla, whose firm was among the earliest supporters of OpenAI, labeled the legal action as a “massive distraction from the goals of getting to AGI and its benefits.”
Marc Andreessen, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, responded to Khosla’s tweet by accusing him of “lobbying to ban open source” research in AI. “Every significant new technology that advances human well-being is greeted by a ginned-up moral panic,” he added. “This is just the latest.”
OpenAI’s Response
In response to Elon Musk’s legal action, OpenAI unequivocally clarified its stance through a blog post titled “OpenAI and Elon Musk.”
The organization shared archived emails from Musk that suggest he once supported a pivot away from open-source practices in the company’s quest to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI).
The emails implied that the “open” in “OpenAI” means that the ultimate result of its AGI research should be open to everyone but not necessarily “open source” along the way.
In one telling exchange from January 2016, OpenAI’s Chief Scientist, Illya Sutskever, wrote, “As we get closer to building AI, it will make sense to start being less open. The ‘Open’ in OpenAI means that everyone should benefit from the fruits of AI after it’s built, but it’s totally OK to not share the science (even though sharing everything is definitely the right strategy in the short and possibly medium term for recruitment purposes).” In response, Musk simply replied, “Yup”.
The forthcoming decision to open-source Grok marks xAI’s entry into a growing trend among firms like Meta and French startup Mistral, which made their chatbot codes available to the public.
Musk has long been an advocate for open source. Both Tesla and SpaceX, two other firms he leads, have open-sourced many of their technologies. X, formerly known as Twitter, also open-sourced some of its algorithms last year.
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