Elon Musk had a run of Artificial Intelligence related appearances at the beginning of November. He appeared for the fourth time on the Joe Rogan Experience and the Lex Fridman podcast. In between he flew over to the UK for a conference about AI. And then he released his own version of a Large Language Model to the public called Grok.
Grok is supposed to be a little lighter and darker than the highly curated and tied down competitors around. One major difference to competitors is that the model is being fed up to date information by scouring Twitter.

Announcing Grok!

Grok is an AI modeled after the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, so intended to answer almost anything and, far harder, even suggest what questions to ask!

Grok is designed to answer questions with a bit of wit and has a rebellious streak, so please don’t use…
— xAI (@xai) November 5, 2023

business connect – Rishi Sunak X Elon Musk

Many Musk interviews end up being boring as the interviewers often do not know the subject matter and haven’t done basic research on Elon Musk. That leads to them usually asking the same questions Elon has already answered many times over.
In this interview, Rishi Sunak is doing an excellent job as an interviewer, and he has a grasp on the subject matter.

AI discussion with @RishiSunak
pic.twitter.com/f5FHGQzE4r
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) November 2, 2023

Here are a few takeaways from the interview:

We need AI regulation for it to have a positive impact on society and lead to a future of abundance.
It is important for government to play a role when public safety is at risk.
There is a concern with people from Silicon Valley who have never dealt with regulators and think it will only slow them down. There might be too much optimism with regards to technology from time to time.
AI is the fastest technological progression Elon has seen so far. It may be growing anywhere from five- to tenfold every year.
Musk sees the current centers for AI development in the Bay Area in California, greater London area and China.
Open-source lags closed source by six to twelve months. That is a big disadvantage at the current rate of improvement. Elon has a slight bias towards open source because the public can at least see what is happening. Even though bad actors can take advantage of it as well. Even open-source AI is hard or impossible to truly understand because it is probabilistic. Outcomes of tests are not deterministic like normal software. Our digital God is a .csv file.
Regarding AI replacing/deleting jobs: there will come a point where no job is needed because AI will provide for most things and jobs will be optional. This will lead to the challenge of how to find meaning in life as a job is currently a big identity giving part in many people’s lives. It won’t be universal BASIC income. It will be universal HIGH income. It will bring an age of abundance with no shortage of goods and services.

Elon recommends reading the Culture series by Ian M. Banks. They are best at envisioning an AI future.

How much was the naming of Grok inspired by Heinlein’s neologism?