XAI’s debut of the GROK 3 AI model allowed CEO Elon Musk and his team to show the power of the latest iteration of Grok. However, a little lost in the benchmarking fireworks is what happens to the Grok 2 model. While Grok 3 is exclusive for Premium+ subscribers of X, the Following 2 will be even more accessible than before, as it will soon be open source.
GROK 2 has been the standard model for any Grok user, but the underlying engine will now have a chance to spread much longer. Usually AI models from large companies are locked. You can access them through paid subscriptions and you can use them, but you can’t really see how they work or change them to suit your specific needs. Open-sourcing GROK 2 means that developers will be able to dig in its code and customize it for use in brand new applications.
Just where open open source version of GROK 2 will be unclear. Sometimes companies say open source even when they retain or hold back at least a little of their proprietary work. Still, we will probably have another life in the hands of an open source community that can fine-tune and experiment with it.
Despite its name, Openai has moved away from Open Source. Its most powerful models remain proprietary. For example, GPT-4 remains locked without open source version in sight. Musk’s conscious contrast with Openai certainly appears, at least something.
After listing his distrust of Openai CEO Sam Altman last fall, Musk emphasized his plan to open source XAI models after completing the next iteration to contrast with chatgpts creates.
Worth noting that @xai has been and will open sources its models, including weights and all as we create the next version, we open the previous version, which we did with Grok 1 when Grok 2 was released.October 4, 2024
Open thought
Not that Xai is unique in pursuing the open source vision. Meta has deep with the Open Source movement by releasing aspects of its Llama models since they first launched. The sudden superstar of AI, China-based Deepseek, has also pushed hard against Open Source AI.
Open sourcing of Grok 2 means that they may lead to some exciting AI tools emerging outside the usual brick gardens. We could see smaller companies and independent developers use it to create custom chatbots and personalized AI assistants, such as an AI Chatbot, trained completely on classical literature or someone to help indie video players generate Lore to their worlds. They can prove that you don’t need a walled garden with several billion dollars to develop something groundbreaking.
Then some of these creations depend on what kind of limitations will be baked in release. Even if Xai means, when it says, Grok 2 will be open source, the company could still have its cake and eat it too. The company can keep its groundbreaking products excluding, but let people get the older version to generate goodwill, get free innovation from independent developers and maybe attract more people to sign up for Grok.
