Billionaire businessman Elon Musk is reportedly planning to launch an ambitious generative artificial intelligence start-up in an effort to compete against OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard. According to a Financial Times report on Friday, Musk is currently assembling a research team of AI engineers and is in discussion with investors from different ventures, such as SpaceX and Tesla, to funnel capital into his venture. An individual familiar with the talks told FT that “A bunch of people are investing in it … it’s real and they are excited about it.”
Musk, who is also the co-founder of electrically-powered vehicle giant Tesla, has bought substantial amounts of Nvidia graphic processing units (GPUs) for this project, which is essential in building generative AI’s language models. The CEO had to leave OpenAI in 2018 due to conflicts of opinion between him and the company’s direction. He has recently spoken out in criticism of OpenAI’s security implementation, pointing out their desire to create barriers to avoid results which could potentially be disrespectful or divisive.
Generative AI allows for the development of AI-created items such as text, videos, images and audio by using machine learning techniques. This form of AI allows for more creative materials as it generates original output based on the pre-given context. Analysts predict that this market could reach as high as $188.62 billion by 2032 if the market is successful, with the north American sector playing a significant role in this success. Not to mention, Goldman Sachs predicts that generative AI could significantly increase global economic growth by approximately $7 trillion and grow productivity by 1.5 percentage percent points in over a decade.
Elon Musk is the visionary entrepreneur behind some of the world’s most impressive technological advances. His other companies such as SpaceX, Neuralink, and The Boring Company continue to revolutionize the tech industry. Recently, he purchased Twitter for $44 billion and is intending to transform the platform into an ‘everything app’, similar to China’s WeChat. It appears now, with advancement in generative AI, that Musk is seeking a challenge.
He has reportedly appointed Igor Babuschkin, a former worker at DeepMindAI as the leader of the AI research group, and is planning to recruit engineers from top AI labs like DeepMind. By eventually launching his own AI start-up, Musk will have another successful venture to add to his long list of prominent companies and investments.
