X introduced its X Premum+ tier final week, which, for $16 a month, offers you entry to the entire X Premium options, and likewise eliminates adverts in your timeline.

And now, you’ll additionally get entry to Grok, which, at this stage, appears just a little like this:

So what makes Grok particular, and differentiates it from, say, ChatGPT, and different AI chat experiences?

The primary variation of Elon’s AI system is that it’s, in Musk’s personal phrases, supposed to be “anti-woke”, with much less censorship of probably delicate matters. 

Elon has voiced sturdy criticism of ChatGPT’s perceived censorship of sure solutions on sure matters, so he launched his personal AI mission to be a greater illustration of “fact”, in his personal definition and expertise.

So how will it try this? 

Elon believes that Grok can be a extra correct supply of fact, significantly on real-time information matters, as a result of it’s sourcing its knowledge from X, with X’s up to date person settlement permitting it to make use of folks’s posts to gas the system.

X has additionally been working to chop off different generative AI initiatives from its API, particularly OpenAI, who Musk has private grievances with. In consequence, Grok, and X’s different AI initiatives can be among the many restricted few which have full entry to the complete X firehouse of data.

Which, no less than in concept, needs to be a major benefit in some respects. However on the similar time, X has additionally been dropping traction as a key information dialogue platform, because of Musk’s varied modifications on the app, which have included a variety of updates designed to undermine “mainstream” information retailers, which, in flip, has seen many journalists migrating to different platforms.

And any change on this respect is critical, as a result of whereas X has 244 million day by day energetic customers, only a few of them really ever publish something within the app.

In accordance with X, 80% of its customers are in “learn solely” mode, and by no means publish, nor interact in any approach. That implies that X’s total enter of 100 million distinctive posts per day is right down to 49 million customers.

So X’s energetic posters are solely posting, on common, two posts per day, although that doesn’t account for replies (that are one other 100m per day).

However it’s really even lower than that.

X lately reported that 42% of its customers are sports activities followers, which means that a good portion of these 200m posts and replies every day are additionally sport-related (in any other case X would haven’t any approach of qualifying this determine).

Assuming that not all sports activities followers publish solely about sports activities, however many do, let’s say that 30% of X’s day by day posts are about sports activities. That implies that solely that there are solely round 70 million authentic posts per day within the app about non-sports topics.

Which is a a lot smaller enter stream than it will initially appear, and hardly indicative of world tendencies or opinion. And with probably the most energetic X customers being X Premium subscribers, a lot of whom are actually creating wealth from their posts, the skew of these 70 million posts can also be prone to be closely aligned with Elon’s personal opinions on varied divisive matters, together with COVID, the battle in Israel, media misinformation, U.S. politics, and extra.

In different phrases, Grok is prone to be a right-leaning misinformation machine, basing its responses on Elon’s military of “citizen journalists”, who now share no matter they need within the app.

However wait, aren’t they being fact-checked by Neighborhood Notes?

Properly, probably not. Neighborhood Notes has confirmed useful for some disputed claims in posts, however the system is already being manipulated, whereas every notice additionally requires consensus from contributors with opposing political leanings, which implies that on lots of the extra divisive matters, related Notes are by no means displayed, as a result of such settlement won’t ever be reached.

So sure misinformation is successfully immune from Neighborhood Notes. Which is probably going how Elon needs it, nevertheless it doesn’t precisely bode effectively for a query and answer-based service that’s targeted on sharing up-to-date information updates. 

However Elon says that Grok will “have just a little humor in its responses”, and it’ll be sarcastic, as a result of it’s educated on X posts. So it needs to be enjoyable, even when it’s also doubtlessly offensive, dangerous, defamatory, harmful, and so forth.

However Elon is satisfied that he has the method for serving to to unfold fact, away from media and authorities lies, and that this, finally, will gas actions of residents that share the true happenings of the world.

What might probably go incorrect?