AI: Elon with xAI
When the history books are written, Elon Musk will be recorded as a technology entrepreneur with an unprecedented, admirable record of ‘against-the-odds’ execution (Tesla, SpaceX reusable rockets and Starlink satellite internet, and presumably others), as well as a super-power sized capability for global self-promotion. Even before he owned and controlled Twitter for $44 billion, the biggest global real time social media communication network, with almost 150 million personal followers.
This week, he tripled down on his intention to build a Foundation LLM AI company to compete head on with OpenAI/Microsoft, Google and others. It’s called xAI. That is not new news. Just that he is re-committed to do so with the loftiest of ideals, is the new element. And the way he did it using Twitter itself, with the two leading politicians from Congress from the left and right in tow.
“In a meandering 90 minute Twitter Spaces audio conference today attended by over 30,000 listeners, the world’s richest man and leader to Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter, outlined what his goal is for his newest venture – xAI. Musk quietly started xAI in April in a bid to formally enter the AI market. With xAI, Musk has assembled an impressive array of experts (most of whom were on the Twitter Spaces conference), with the audacious goal of, “understanding the true nature of the universe.”
“Understanding the universe as it turns out, has to do with a lot of AI.”
“The overarching goal of xAI is to build a good AGI [artificial general intelligence] with the overarching purpose of just trying to understand the universe,” Musk said.”
The full piece is worth a read, especially in the context of his ultimate ambitions around AI. Of note is his attempt already to cast himself in the best light in his long history and saga with OpenAI:
“Elon Musk was one of the original co-founders of OpenAI in 2015, which is a fact that he is always eager to bring up in any conversation about AI in recent months.
On his Twitter Space, Musk recounted that he used to be close friends with Google co-founder Larry Page. After Google acquired DeepMind in 2014, Musk said he had a number of conversations with Page about AI safety. Those conversations, according to Musk, didn’t go well, with Musk having a very different view than Page. As a result, Musk said that realized there was a need to have what he called a “counterweight” to Google and its influence on AI.”
“That counterweight was OpenAI. The original goal for OpenAI according to Musk was to be open source and non-profit.”
“Now because fate loves irony, OpenAI is closed source and frankly voracious for profit,” he said.”
“Musk’s hope is that xAI will not stray from its founding vision, that is to help humanity.”
Of course all this assumes flawless and timely execution against time driven deadlines:
“While Musk didn’t specifically detail how xAI will be able to compete effectively against its rivals, he did outline a specific timeline in which he expects AGI to actually be a viable reality: roughly by 2029.”
“However, whenever quoting Musk, it is important to point out he has repeatedly stated timelines for other ventures — including SpaceX landing humans on Mars and launching a Tesla robotaxi service for owners to rent out their autonomously-driven cars — that have not been fulfilled.”
As I highlighted in an earlier piece on Elon and AI a few days ago, he is going to have to assemble vast resources for his AI ambitions, at a time when there are over a dozen global entities, many quasi-state sponsored, who are committing over $100 billion into Foundation LLM AI models. So Elon has a daunting set of execution items on his AI road:
“In particular, it means he will need thousands of Nvidia’s GPU chips as he can get in a globally constrained environment, and they easily run into the hundreds of millions and billions of dollars, in the quantities needed to build Foundation LLM AI models. Remember, OpenAI is apparently looking to raise another $100 billion after raising over $12 billion plus from Microsoft. Most of that going back into Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure. (Will have more in that in future posts).”
“So, to do xAI, even Elon Musk needs resources, and he likely will use Tesla as the balance sheet for his Nvidia GPU and xAI data center purchases. And Tesla shareholders will have to sort all that out. But at least car deliveries are on track with recent discounts, so that’s a tailwind. “
And all this is on top of his already underway competition and possible cage matches with Meta/Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg with their Twitter clone Threads, which had already grown to over 110 million sign ups in a week vs Twitter’s 300 million or so global users. And that very public competition is already endorsed by Uber-VC and tech entrepreneur Marc Andreessen, who sits on the board of Meta, and knows both individuals very well. Indeed, he cites both as exemplary role models for kids today.
Also, as outlined yesterday, Meta is poised to lean into open source LLM AI even further this week with LLaMA 2. And redouble their focus on leveraging AI for its billions of global users.
What we have here are fundamental world changing technologies being invented, developed and scaled at the earliest stages. With potentially existential risks for humankind. Combined with over four billion people earnestly watching and rooting for winners and losers in a global tech gladiatorial environment.
Oh and of course, private/public investors, companies, and countries putting down their chips in the tens, hundreds of billions, and ultimately trillions of dollars in global markets. We’ve never seen a tech wave with these variables before. What could possibly not go right? Stay tuned.