Elon Musk jumps in to build 'rival' startup to OpenAI

Tech billionaire Elon Musk has joined the race of artificial intelligence (AI) and is building a rival startup to Chat GPT-builder OpenA, reported Reuters citing Financial Times.

According to the report, Elon Musk is in the process of assembling a team of AI experts, engineers and researchers, and reaching out to investors in Tesla and SpaceX to financially back his new technology bid.

The development is followed by an open letter written by technology executives, and AI researchers including Elon Musk calling for a pause of six months in building a system that could be far more powerful than OpenAI's ChatGPT 4.

In the letter, it was mentioned that AI labs are currently locked in an "out-of-control race" to develop and deploy machine learning systems "that no one — not even their creators — can understand, predict, or reliably control."

"AI systems with human-competitive intelligence can pose profound risks to society and humanity," said the letter.

"Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable", read the letter in which Musk was also among the people asking to halt the speedy development the AI technology.

Tech companies are stressing including generative AI — the one used in ChatGPT — into their products and services.

Despite ChatGPT's miracles, the technology regulators are asking for well-defined rules before it could be for general use.

Citing privacy issues, Italy had banned ChatGPT while a watchdog from Europe formed a task force as a first initiative to develop a common AI policy.

Musk secured thousands of graphics processing units, systems that power the computing required for intensive tasks such as AI and high-end graphics, from Nvidia, the report noted.

The stock prices of the company rallied on Friday after the news broke out.

According to a state filing last month, Musk registered a company named X.AI Corp, incorporated in Nevada. In the list of the company, Elon Musk is named as the sole director whereas Jared Birchall is named secretary — who is a managing director of Musk's family office.

It remains unclear whether the firm in Nevada was related to Musk’s plans to build an AI start-up.

Elon Musk is among the co-founders of the Microsoft-backed OpenAI which was started as a non-profit in 2015 however, he parted ways from the company’s board in 2018.