Elon Musk Launches AI Firm xAI To 'Understand True Nature Of Universe', Ropes In Engineers From Google, Microsoft And OpenAI

Billionaire Elon Musk has announced the formation of his artificial intelligence (AI) startup, xAI.

The AI startup's website was launched on Wednesday (12 July), unveiling a team of engineers with experience at major companies like Google, Microsoft, and OpenAI.

Musk, who is the CEO of Tesla and the owner of Twitter, will be leading the startup. He has been vocal about his belief that AI development should be paused and regulated.

In a tweet on Wednesday, Musk stated, "Announcing formation of @xAI to understand reality."

Musk has expressed his concerns about the development of AI and has called for regulation in the sector, citing its potential for "civilizational destruction."

During a Twitter Spaces event on Wednesday (12 July) evening, Musk shared his plan for creating a safer AI. Instead of directly programming morality into the AI, XAI will seek to create a "maximally curious" AI, he said.

According to Musk, the best approach for AI safety is to encourage the AI to understand the true nature of the universe.

Musk believes that this will ultimately be beneficial for humanity, as he finds humanity to be more interesting than anything else.

"I think it is going to be pro-humanity from the standpoint that humanity is just much more interesting than not-humanity," he said, reports Reuters.

In addition to discussing AI safety, Musk also made a prediction that superintelligence, or AI that surpasses human intelligence, will become a reality within the next five or six years. Musk had co-founded OpenAI, the company responsible for ChatGPT, in 2015. However, he stepped down from the company's board in 2018.

OpenAI has received investment from Microsoft, making them one of the company's investors.

On 14 July, xAI will hold a Twitter Spaces event, according to the company website.

"The goal of xAI is to understand the true nature of the universe", the company website said.

The xAI team consists of talented individuals such as Igor Babuschkin, a former engineer at Google's DeepMind, Tony Wu, who has previously worked at Google, Christian Szegedy, a research scientist at Google, and Greg Yang, who was previously employed at Microsoft.

In March, Elon Musk registered a company called X.AI Corp in Nevada. The company's filing shows Musk as the sole director, with Jared Birchall, the managing director of Musk's family office, serving as the secretary.

Back in April, Musk announced his plans to launch TruthGPT, an AI system designed to seek maximum truth. This AI would be a competitor to Google's Bard and Microsoft's Bing AI.

OpenAI gained attention for its Generative AI when it introduced the popular chatbot ChatGPT in November last year, ahead of the launch of Bard and Bing AI.

Dan Hendrycks, an expert in AI safety, will advise the xAI team.

Currently serving as the director of the Center for AI Safety, Hendrycks' work revolves around the risks of AI.

Musk's new company will collaborate closely with Twitter, Tesla, and other companies, although it is separate from X Corp. xAI is actively seeking experienced engineers and researchers in the San Francisco Bay Area.