Meet Grok – the self proclaimed black sheep to the AI landscape. Billed as a ‘witty and rebellious’ AI chatbot – the new feature has been created by his company xAI and designed as a competitor to ChatGPT.
What You Need to Know About Grok
One of the frustrating things users have discovered about ChatGPT is the parameters and restrictions placed on it by its developers. From foul language to anything considered remotely controversial or inappropriate – the standard ” sorry I can’t do that ” message would be its response.
If we learned anything about Musk’s new vision of Twitter – is that his focus is on letting free speech be free speech no matter the motive or truthfulness of that speech.
By removing the restraints of ethics and civility from applications like ChatGPT, it opens up an entirely new realm of content creation and AI interaction. It’s an interesting move from a person who 6 months ago was asking for restrictions to be placed on AI technology.
Grok’s Notable Features…
- First and foremost, Grok will be available through your Twitter (X’s) premium subscription
- Grok is synced with the internet so unlike ChatGPT, has access to the most current information available.
- The program is interwoven with Twitter which is also part of its language learning database.
- Grok can maintain multiple chats at once and is designed to be ” witty and uncensored.
- API, image, and audio recognition are planned, with a version of Grok also running natively in Tesla’s local computing.
The full beta testing and roll out of Grok is expected to take place over the next two months.
Why this Matters to You
For many ChatGPT users, particularly those that want unfiltered results, Grok will be a welcome alternative. The obvious short fall – or call it danger of such a program is the misuse of it. Twitter is already a haven for misinformation and bots, and the idea that the knowledge base of Grok will be in part driven by the content posted on Twitter is concerning. Will Grok start giving credence to conspiracy theories as fact because it read it on Twitter ?
If ChatGPT had a vulnerable flank it was its ethical restrictions and Musk is taking direct aim at that weakness.
It’s too early to tell how Grok will change the AI landscape, but it should be an interesting few months.
