xAI, a startup founded by Elon Musk that’s working on building artificial intelligence (AI), has released Grok, a chatbot powered by generative artificial intelligence (GenAI). According to the company, Grok is “modelled after Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” and it is “intended to answer almost anything and, far harder, even suggest what questions to ask!”
Grok is powered by Grok-1, a large language model (LLM) that xAI developed in four months. The chatbot has real-time access to information on X (formerly known as Twitter), and that, according to the company is a massive advantage over other LLMs, such as Chat GPT. xAI says that it is designed to “answer questions with a bit of wit and has a rebellious streak,” and asks people not to use it if they “hate humour!” According to the company, Grok will also answer “spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems.”
Currently, Grok is in the “early beta” stage, and xAI is offering an early access program to the chatbot via this website. However, it is limited to people in the US who have verified accounts on X. If you qualify for those requirements, you can sign up for the preview to join the waitlist. Elon Musk says that once Grok comes out of the early beta stage, it will be available on the X platform to all people with the X Premium+ membership, which costs $16/month in the US.
