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

And now, you’ll additionally get entry to Grok, which, at this stage, seems a bit 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 challenge to be a greater illustration of “reality”, in his personal definition and expertise.

So how will it do this? 

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

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

Which, at the very least in concept, must be a major benefit in some respects. However on the identical time, X has additionally been shedding traction as a key information dialogue platform, as a result of Musk’s numerous modifications on the app, which have included a spread of updates designed to undermine “mainstream” information shops, which, in flip, has seen many journalists migrating to different platforms.

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

Based on X, 80% of its customers are in “learn solely” mode, and by no means put up, nor have interaction in any means. That implies that X’s complete enter of 100 million distinctive posts per day is all the way 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 means of qualifying this determine).

Assuming that not all sports activities followers put up solely about sports activities, however many do, let’s say that 30% of X’s every day posts are about sports activities. That implies that solely that there are solely round 70 million unique 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, lots of whom at the moment are getting cash from their posts, the skew of these 70 million posts can also be more likely to be closely aligned with Elon’s personal opinions on numerous divisive matters, together with COVID, the struggle in Israel, media misinformation, U.S. politics, and extra.

In different phrases, Grok is more likely 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 Group Notes?

Properly, not likely. Group Notes has confirmed helpful for some disputed claims in posts, however the system is already being manipulated, whereas every word 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 Group 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 a bit humor in its responses”, and it’ll be sarcastic, as a result of it’s skilled on X posts. So it must be enjoyable, even when it is usually doubtlessly offensive, dangerous, defamatory, harmful, and so forth.

However Elon is satisfied that he has the system for serving to to unfold reality, away from media and authorities lies, and that this, ultimately, will gasoline actions of residents that share the actual happenings of the world.

What may presumably go unsuitable?