On March 11th, Elon Musk announced that his AI company, xAI, would make its AI chatbot Grok open source, a move that has now come to fruition with its code being made available on GitHub.
This significant step allows developers and researchers to build upon Grok’s framework, influencing future updates as xAI competes with major players like OpenAI, Meta, and Google.
The announcement of Grok going open-sourced was made something like this!
░W░E░I░G░H░T░S░I░N░B░I░O░
— Grok (@grok) March 17, 2024
The open-source release includes the base model weights and network architecture of Grok-1, a 314 billion parameter Mixture-of-Experts model.
According to a company’s blog post, this model, captured at a checkpoint last October, is not fine-tuned for specific applications such as dialogue, providing a raw yet powerful foundation for further development.
Elon Musk sarcastically replied to this announcement!
Tell us more about the “Open” part of OpenAI …
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 17, 2024
While the release under the Apache 2.0 license permits commercial use, it notably excludes the training data and real-time data connections to X. xAI’s previous communications highlighted Grok’s development over four months, targeting applications in coding generation, creative writing, and question-answering.
If this isn’t creative marketing, I don’t know what is 😂
— Adrian Dittmann (@AdrianDittmann) March 17, 2024
Elon Musk’s approach to AI transparency was underscored by his decision to open source Twitter’s (now X) algorithms post-acquisition. His critique extends to firms like OpenAI, which he co-founded but is now in legal conflict with, accusing them of straying from their open-source commitment.
The practice of open-sourcing AI models, as seen with various degrees in the industry, aims to garner community feedback for enhancement.
Is it grok time?? pic.twitter.com/DIzvDiEf6n
— Marvin🌚 (@Murvvy) March 17, 2024
While open-source AI models exist, like Mistral and Falcon, the dominant ones often have restricted licenses. For example, Meta’s Llama 2 is freely available for research but imposes usage fees and restrictions on large-scale commercial developers.
Grok’s initial launch required a paid subscription, positioning itself as a fresh, albeit less polished, alternative to established chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini.
When can Europe use Grok? pic.twitter.com/kwzPHoq3E3
— The Dutch Doge Guy 🐕 (@070guy) March 17, 2024
Despite its aim for irreverence and topicality, early assessments found Grok lacking humor and distinctiveness compared to its more advanced competitors.
Musk’s commitment to open-sourcing Grok aligns with his broader critique of the AI industry, particularly targeting Google’s Gemini for its “woke” attributes, as he simultaneously engages in legal battles with OpenAI.
That is funny! Love!
— Robert Scoble (@Scobleizer) March 17, 2024
This move to open-source Grok democratizes access to advanced AI technologies and reflects Musk’s strategic positioning in the ongoing AI development and deployment discourse.
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