Sign In
By signing in or creating an account, you agree with Associated Broadcasting Company's Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.
By signing in or creating an account, you agree with Associated Broadcasting Company's Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy.
Elon Musk has unveiled that his AI company xAI is open sourcing its Grok 2.5 model. This system, which up to last year was the most advanced in xAI, is now available on Hugging Face, where developers can use, test and modify it. Musk also confirmed that in six months Grok 3, which launched earlier this year, would also be made open source.
The news was posted on X, where Musk emphasised his agenda of making AI development transparent. Such a step puts xAI in the same league as OpenAI, which has kept the most powerful systems in its arsenal close to the rest of the world. Whereas Musk has regularly criticised the limited nature of OpenAI, his company is now presenting itself as more open and community-centred.
Grok 2.5 is currently available on Hugging Face, which is a widely used AI platform. The model can be downloaded, run and adapted by developers, but xAI has introduced limitations to the licence. It can be freely tested and applied but not trained to create other AI systems or construct competitive models.
It is not the first time xAI has gone open-source. This is because in March last year, it published the base version of Grok 1, allowing anyone to get acquainted with its functionality. As Grok 2.5 is released and Grok 3 is promised, Musk seems to keep xAI's roadmap much simpler than the one of peers.
Grok has had its critics in the past. The model produced bad and offensive answers, which xAI explained to be the result of outdated code. Though improvements have been implemented, the incident has brought to light the question of safety when such systems are deployed on a mass scale. Musk has indicated that the open-source community might be able to help in smoothing out the technology.
Musk has also hinted at Grok 5 by the end of this year, but his ambitious schedules have not always been realised. By continuing to release future models as open source, xAI may further its reputation as an open-minded alternative to more closed AI companies. The next few months will prove whether Musk will live up to that promise.
