Elon Musk's xAI wants $1B cash infusion in exchange for equity shares
- Reference: 1701885608
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2023/12/06/elon_musks_xai_is_seeking/
- Source link:
In a [1]filing yesterday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Elon Musk's xAI said it had already nabbed nearly $135 million from four investors, and had "binding and enforceable agreement[s]" in place for the remaining $865 million.
Sorry readers, if you were hoping to buy in it might already be too late. You may still have a chance, however, as the SEC said that it won't attest to the accuracy of the information in the filing. So, provided you have a spare $2 million lying around – the minimum investment xAI will accept – you could still buy into Musk's quest " [2]to understand reality ," as the billionaire said of xAI's goals when announcing its founding in July.
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xAI has since [4]launched its own AI chatbot – "Grok" – which the company describes as having "a bit of wit and … a rebellious streak, so please don't use it if you hate humor!"
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Grok reportedly has real-time knowledge of the world via posts on X, formerly Twitter, and "will also answer spicy questions that are rejected by most other AI systems." Access to Grok is restricted to X Premium+ subscribers willing to fork over $16 a month for the privilege of joining the waitlist.
Musk has called Grok " [7]based ," ( [8]an online political slang term for those unfamiliar ) and marketed it as a response to what he has [9]called "woke AI" from other organizations like OpenAI. Being woke AI, Musk alleges, means being trained to lie.
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In actuality, Grok's access to real-time data from X appears to have just turned it into a sweary internet [11]troll that [12]still won't tell you how to make cocaine.
xAI "is focused on sort of AGI," Musk [13]said during Tesla's Q2 earnings call this year when asked if Tesla investors should be concerned that the new enterprise could be a distraction. "I think there will be some value that xAI brings to Tesla," Musk added.
Musk has previously professed [14]worry over the dangers of artificial general intelligence - we suppose if he's the one controlling it he feels much safer.
[15]Another challenger to OpenAI? OK, we'll allow it
[16]X may train its AI models on your social media posts
[17]X's legal eagles swoop on Media Matters over antisemitic content row
[18]Elon Musk yearns for AI devs to build 'anti-woke' rival ChatGPT bot
Whether investors in other AI outfits like OpenAI, which is still reeling from the chaos surrounding CEO Sam Altman's [19]brief ouster , will turn to Musk's enterprise is unanswered. The reason for Altman's firing is still unclear, former OpenAI director and LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman [20]said yesterday, and rivals like Anthropic have [21]seized the opportunity to point out how they differ and why they're a better option.
Musk, on the other hand, recently told X advertisers off in [22]very certain terms after some pulled ads in the wake of his promotion of antisemitic content and [23]ads served next to hate speech on his personal social media platform.
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Whether AI investors will want to be associated with a company whose AI is trained largely on posts from X isn't immediately clear. The names of those who've already bought into xAI's equity round, and the alleged investors ready to bring the round to $1 billion, weren't included in the SEC filing, and xAI hasn't responded to questions from The Register . ®
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[1] https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/2002695/000200269523000002/xslFormDX01/primary_doc.xml
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/12/musk_xai_reality/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZXD9IFJR4tTuIkjx2itUzwAAAEk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/06/ai_in_brief/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZXD9IFJR4tTuIkjx2itUzwAAAEk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZXD9IFJR4tTuIkjx2itUzwAAAEk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1720660977786433810
[8] https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=based
[9] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1603836383885332480
[10] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZXD9IFJR4tTuIkjx2itUzwAAAEk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[11] https://www.businessinsider.com/elon-musk-ai-chatbot-grok-sounds-like-foul-mouthed-troll-2023-11
[12] https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1720635518289908042
[13] https://www.fool.com/earnings/call-transcripts/2023/07/19/tesla-tsla-q2-2023-earnings-call-transcript/
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2017/10/09/deep_learning_unlikely_to_lead_to_artificial_general_intelligence/
[15] https://www.theregister.com/2023/07/12/kettle_xai_musk/
[16] https://www.theregister.com/2023/09/04/in_brief_ai/
[17] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/21/x_sues_media_matters/
[18] https://www.theregister.com/2023/03/06/ai_roundup/
[19] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/30/sam_altman_openai_ceo_restored/
[20] https://www.cnbc.com/2023/12/05/reid-hoffman-says-we-dont-know-why-openai-board-forced-out-sam-altman.html
[21] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/28/amazon_q_aws/
[22] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/30/musk_murders_x/
[23] https://www.theregister.com/2023/11/17/ibm_pauses_advertising_on_x/
[24] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/aiml&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZXD9IFJR4tTuIkjx2itUzwAAAEk&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[25] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Spread too thin
Don't forget night chats with Pootin and preventing the Newclear war.
Re: Spread too thin
Not to mention preventing a second holocaust through spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories and comments.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7bqwy/keith-rabois-vc-holocaust-elon-musk-twitter-x
Re: Spread too thin
He expects other employees to spend at least 40 hours/week in an office/on a worksite, for each of those companies.
There's 168 hours in a single week. Even if we exclude everything after Neuralink, because he basically just revived the idea of the hyperloop and then dumped it on gullible idiots who've never heard of pneumatic tubes. That's still 6 companies. So, 6 companies X 40 hrs/week per company = 240 hours. Now, I admit my math isn't always the greatest, but I feel pretty confident when I say that 240 > 168. That means there's no way he could be living up to his own requirement for other employees of spending 40 hrs/week on the job, and that's even assuming he never needs to eat, sleep, take a shit, or anything else. And of course we already know he spends hours every day shitposting on Xitter. So, he's not even necessarily spending 40hrs/week at any of those businesses actually doing work.
Re: Spread too thin
"Thin" and Musk's Waist are poles apart
Re: Spread too thin
He's not spread too thin, he's just found another make of snakeoil to sell as people have started to work out the rest he's selling doesn't work.
The Boring Company and Hypeloop are doing nothing, Neuralink is [1]being investigated for animal torture , Tesla's car software [2]is dangerous according to a whistleblower , Starship still isn't ready for crewed flight unlike Orion which has crewed flight planned for the next mission, and Musk has turned Xitter into a dumpster fire. Where else is there left to turn except AI?
[1] https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-pcrm-neuralink-monkey-deaths/
[2] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-67591311
Re: Spread too thin
"Where else is there left to turn except AI?"
Blockchain!!!!
I have $2 worth of toilet paper he could borrow.
New or used?
One born every minute.
AI companies, I mean; not investors eager to give their money to a fool. One of them is born every second.
Neat trick
Most LLMs that are trained on real world data like Twitter have problems where they degenerate into crude, racist, misinformation-spewing abominations. Researchers have struggled quite a bit to overcome those issues.
Musky just labeled that behavior as a feature and shipped it.
Re: A non-woke AI bot - this does not soukd like a return to sober decision making ...
Best fit I have seen is W hat O ffends K lansmen E asily
Y'know
Y'know, at some point, people are going to twig that good old Twittler isn't the genius his PR and lickspittles claim he is.
Re: Y'know
Be careful what you wish for. As Bogeyman-in-chief, Musko is a fine source of entertainment, providing a never ending source of clickbait news, keeping innumerable journalists in work.
And who would we mock without him? Bezos, Zuck, Gates, Cook? Nah, tame, dull, borrrrriing. The world needs Musk as the pantomime villain of the tech sector, in the same way it needs Fat Boi Kim as the pantomime villain of dictators.
Genius move
Like any good conman will tell you, why spend your own money on something when you can convince some rich sucker to pay for it?
I won't call AI a fad, but I will call it a solution in desperate search of a problem. Right now no one can really define what AI is, what it's good for, or pretty much anything else about it... but everyone is tripping over themselves to try to add it to their product, whether it makes sense or not. Eventually the actual useful applications for the tech will separate from the chaff, but not before a lot of people will be bilked out of billions, maybe even trillions.
A non-woke AI bot - this does not sound like a return to sober decision making ...
On one hand it should meanwhile be obvious to any investor that his intensifying god-complex, FU-attitude and right-wing conspiracy tendencies can no longer be ignored.
All of those pose a clear danger to anyone who plans to actually earn money by giving some of theirs to Mr Musk.
So it will become interesting to observe if Mr. Musk's ongoing harsh treatment of investors/victims of his X/Twitter personal blog will result in enough people thininking hard about this proposal for his personal "non-woke" AI bot.
On the other hand - as the article seems to indicate - investment decisions driven by greed and rational reasoning usually do not seem to be tightly coupled. Or coupled at all.
Everyone being hurt by this investment should have known better.
I'm out of this and prefer to invest in popcorn...
ROI
In return, you can have Musk publicly tell you to GFYS.
The Musk empire is starting to sound like a pyramid scheme. Investment in stage N pays the deficit of stage N-1.
Re: ROI
That's more of a ponzi scheme, and comes complete with Xitler living large on the investment money of others.
Humor
I can do without an AI with an everyday person's notion of humor. Most idiots idea of humor is to say something stupid and then laugh at their own comment.
you could still buy into Musk's quest "to understand reality"
A year ago he was claiming that Twitter is too full of bots.
Now he's selling bots full of Twitter.
Spread too thin
* Xitter
* Tesla
* The Boring Company
* xAI
* SpaceX
* Neuralink
* Hyperloop One
* 10 kids
* 3 partners (inc 2 ex-partners)
* trip to Mars
* cage fight with Zuck