Musk Unveils New "Rebellious" AI Chatbot Grok, Inspired by Hitchhiker's Guide

Elon Musk has revealed a new AI chatbot called "Grok" that is currently being tested by select users. The Tesla CEO described Grok as having a "rebellious streak" and being inspired by the sci-fi comedy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Musk announced Grok at an artificial intelligence summit in London last week. He said the chatbot is powered by a large language model called Grok-1 that can allegedly solve middle school math problems better than ChatGPT. However, Grok-1 is still behind the most advanced ChatGPT model, GPT-4.

The name "Grok" comes from sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein and means to understand something thoroughly and intuitively. Grok has access to posts on X, the social media platform owned by Musk, which allows it to give sarcastic responses. An example shows Grok humorously advising against making cocaine when asked.

Grok is being developed by Musk's new company xAI. It is currently available to select users in the US under an early access program. More features will be added over the coming months before it is released to premium subscribers on X.

The unveiling comes after Musk expressed concerns about the rapid advancement of AI last week, calling it "one of the biggest threats to humanity." However, he now believes a moratorium is unrealistic. With Grok, Musk aims to develop AI "in a good way," though its rebellious nature could raise more alarms.