Elon Musk, the technology billionaire and dogecoin (DOGE) supporter has reportedly incorporated a new artificial intelligence (AI) firm called X.AI Corp. in Nevada, United States.
The company, established on March 9, has Musk as its director and Jared Birchall, Musk’s family office director; as secretary. According to the company’s articles of incorporation, the sale of 100m shares has already been approved.
Speculations about the new AI company
The news comes after days of speculation that Musk was planning to launch an AI company. A series of actions by the billionaire founder fueled these rumors. Per a Wall Street Journal report, Musk recently hired several AI specialists, including Manuel Kroiss and former DeepMind researcher, Igor Babuschkin.
Earlier on, he also reportedly bought 10,000 graphic processing units (GPUs) to launch an AI product for Twitter, a social media company he owns. There were further reports that Musk had requested SpaceX and Tesla investors for funds to launch the business.
It’s expected that Musk’s new business, X.AI, would directly compete with OpenAI. However, it still needs to be clarified what the company aims to achieve with its product.
It was previously believed that Musk would work on AI in Twitter, which he acquired in October 2022. However, it is now evident that Musk wants to an alternate solution with this new, unaffiliated venture in Nevada to take on Microsoft-backed OpenAI and ChatGPT.
Elon Musk’s concerns over AI
The launch of X.AI is only the most recent step in Musk’s continuous efforts to lead AI development while raising awareness of the risks associated with the technology.
Musk was formerly a co-founder of OpenAI. However, he quit the group due to what he claimed to be a possible conflict of interest with his work at Tesla, which also creates AI-dependent technology for its self-driving cars.
Musk has previously criticized OpenAI for pursuing artificial general intelligence (AGI), which entails machines being able to carry out any intellectual work that humans can. At the same time, Musk has been a prominent supporter of control and regulation of AI development, claiming that it poses a severe threat to humanity if left unchecked.
Musk stated in a 2018 interview with Joe Rogan that AI was “more dangerous than nuclear weapons” and might wipe out humanity if it is not adequately regulated.
Despite these worries, Musk has kept funding AI research. The establishment of X.AI implies that he sees a future for AI that is secure and advantageous.
