xAI Releases Grok 3: Technical Details and Competitive Context

xAI just released Grok 3, its latest AI model. Access begins today for premium X platform subscribers in the U.S. and via a separate subscription for Grok’s web and app versions. The model runs on xAI’s Colossus supercomputer in Memphis, now upgraded to 200,000 Nvidia GPUs (from its prior 100,000), used to process training data. Continue Reading →

Follow the AI Money

There are two stories in the news today that caught my attention: 1) News Corp is suing Perplexity.ai for aggregating and surfacing WSJ and NYPost content without permission or payment. 2) xAI launched its API, which reminded me that X changed its terms of services last week, informing users that it can (and most likely will) use any content posted on X (formerly Twitter) to train its AI models. Continue Reading →

X-treme AI Images from Grok-2

X announced the latest iterations of its Grok AI models, Grok-2 and Grok-2 mini. The company says these models bring enhanced reasoning capabilities and new functionalities to the platform, including the ability to generate images directly on X. Access to Grok-2 is currently restricted to Premium and Premium+ users. Continue Reading →

Linda Yaccarino’s Open Letter to Advertisers

I've known Linda Yaccarino, CEO of X, for a long time. She is a dear friend. Yesterday, she posted an open letter to advertisers on X. I've appended it (unedited) below. In support of Linda's post, Elon posted, "We tried peace for 2 years, now it is war." As declarations of war go, this one is clear. Continue Reading →

A Future We Won’t Recognize

I'm not sure if George Lucas was prescient (or just lucky) when he wrote C-3PO's famous self-introduction: "I am C-3PO, human/cyborg relations." It always announced itself as a purpose-built artificial life form. Ethics? Protocol? Law? Truth in labeling? Requirement? We won't need to recognize the future; it's already here. Continue Reading →

Congressional Hearings on Child Safety

Yesterday's Senate hearing on child safety in social media saw CEOs from TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), Meta (Facebook's parent company), Discord, and Snapchat face questions from lawmakers. The hearing focused on the impact of social media on children's safety and the bipartisan effort to more effectively regulate these platforms. Continue Reading →

Elon Launches xAI’s Grok

Elon Musk has introduced Grok, an AI chatbot developed by his new company xAI, poised to challenge existing AI services. Named after an alien word from Robert A. Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land," Grok is designed to respond with wit to queries that might stump other bots. Continue Reading →