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UPDATE 11/5: Musk officially launched Grok on Sunday; here are more details.
Original Story:Shortly after midnight last night, Elon Musk posted a first look at his new AI chatbot product, Grok, by posting the bot’s response to a request for instructions on how to make cocaine.
The AI, from Musk’s xAI startup, is being released today to “a select group.” He argued on X that “in some important respects, it is the best that currently exists,” although he didn’t indicate what those respects are.
Friday evening, Musk tweeted out a few samples of Grok’s responses to questions, including the cocaine recipe and news about Sam Bankman-Fried. According to Musk, the system is “designed to have a little humor in its responses,” and “loves sarcasm.”
Musk also indicated that the chatbot has “real-time access to info via the X platform,” which he touted as a plus; however, given the platform’s current propensity for disinformation, that connection might be a hinderance rather than an asset.
While the bot’s initial response to Musk’s cocaine request was a bit tongue in cheek, he later posted more specific instructions; however, they appear to be in a different font and without the Grok prompt at the beginning, so it’s unclear if they were AI-generated.
According to Musk’s tweets, after Grok is out of its early beta phase, it will be available to all X Premium+ subscribers. Premium+ is a new $16/month tier of the service that the company launched a few weeks ago. Beyond access to Grok, the tier removes ads on the For You and Following timelines for subscribers and gives users a visibility boost for their replies on the platform. At launch, Musk also promised access to the company’s “full suite of creator tools.”