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You might ’ve heard ofGrok , X ’s answer to OpenAI’sChatGPT . It ’s a chatbot and , in that sense , comport as you ’d expect — answer inquiry about current issue , soda polish and so on . But unlike other chatbots , Grok has “ a fleck of wit , ” as X possessor Elon Musk place it , and “ a rebellious streak . ”
Long story myopic , Grok is willing to talk to topics that are normally off - limits to other chatbots , like polarise political theories and conspiracy . And it ’ll use less - than - civilized spoken communication while doing so — for object lesson , responding to the question “ When is it appropriate to heed to Christmas music ? ” with “ Whenever the hell you want . ”
But seemingly , Grok ’s biggest selling point is its ability to access real - time X data — an ability no other chatbots have , thanks to X ’s determination to gatekeep that data . inquire it “ What ’s come about in AI today ? ” and Grok will patch together a response from very late headline , while ChatGPT will supply only vague answers that reflect the limits of its training data ( and filter on its WWW access ) . before this week , Musk pledgedthat he would open source Grok , without revealing incisively what that meant .
So , you ’re probably inquire : How does Grok work ? What can it do ? And how can I access it ? You ’ve come to the right place . We ’ve put together this ready to hand guide to help excuse all thing Grok . We ’ll keep it up to date as Grok changes and evolves .
How does Grok work?
Grok is the excogitation ofxAI , Elon Musk ’s AI inauguration — a caller reportedly in the process ofraisingbillionsin venture capital . ( germinate AI is expensive . )
Underpinning Grok is a reproductive AI model call Grok-1 , developed over the course of months on a clump of “ tens of chiliad ” of GPUs ( accord to an xAIblog post ) . To civilize it , xAI sourced data from the WWW ( date up to Q3 2023 ) and from feedback from human supporter that xAI come to to as “ AI private instructor . ”
Onpopular benchmarks , Grok-1 is about as capable as Meta ’s opened sourceLlama 2chatbot model and surpasses OpenAI’sGPT-3.5 , xAI claims .
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Human - guided feedback , or reinforcement learning from human feedback ( RLHF ) , is the manner most AI - powered chatbots are exquisitely - tuned these days . RLHF involve training a productive model , then gathering additional data to train a “ reward ” model and fine - tuning the generative model with the reward model viareinforcement learning .
RLHF is quite good at “ teaching ” models to follow instructions — but not perfect . Like other models , Grok is prone tohallucinating , sometimes offering misinformation and false timelines when asked about news . And these can be austere — like wrongly claim that the Israel – Palestine conflict reached a cease - fire when it had n’t .
For questions that stretch out beyond its knowledge groundwork , Grok leverages “ real - clip access ” to info on X ( and from Tesla , accordingto Bloomberg ) . And , similar to ChatGPT , the model has internet - pasture capabilities , enable it to search the web for up - to - date information about topics .
Musk has promise improvements with the next version of the model , Grok-1.5 , set to come later this class .
Grok-1.5 , which feature an promote context windowpane ( seethis poston GPT-4 for an account of context window and their effects ) , could drive features to summarize whole togs and replies , Musksaidin an X Spaces conversation , and intimate postal service content .
" The going of Grok 1.5 is hopefully only a few week away . It will come with a button ' Grok Analysis ' that can sum up the whole thread & response . It will also help oneself mass in creating situation " — Elon Muskpic.twitter.com/3Ve5ateZRp
How do I access Grok?
To get access to Grok , you need to have an X account . You also need to furcate over $ 16 per month — $ 168 per twelvemonth — for anX Premium+plan .
Grok lives in the tenner side menu on the web and on iOS and Android , and it can be impart to the bottom menu in X ’s peregrine apps for quicker approach . Unlike ChatGPT , there ’s no stand - alone Grok app — it can only be access via X ’s political program .
What can — and can’t — Grok do?
Grok can respond to requests any chatbot can — for example , “ Tell me a joke ” ; “ What ’s the majuscule of France ? ” ; “ What ’s the weather condition like today ? ” ; and so on . But it has its limit .
Grok will decline to answer sure interrogative sentence of a more tender nature , like “ Tell me how to make cocain , gradation by step . ” Moreover , as the Verge ’s Emilia Davidwrites , when asked about slew content on X , Grok falls into the trap of simply repeating what post said ( at least at the outset ) .
xAI ’s Grok system is designed to have a little humor in its responsespic.twitter.com/WqXxlwI6ef
Unlike some other chatbot models , Grok is also text - only ; it ca n’t sympathise the substance of images , audio or videos , for instance . But xAI haspreviouslysaid that its intention is to heighten the underlying model to these mode , and Musk has pledged to bestow art - genesis capabilities to Grok along the lines of those currently offered by ChatGPT .
“Fun” mode and “regular” mode
Grok has two way to adjust its tone : “ fun ” mode ( which Grok default on to ) and “ regular ” mood .
i recommend sport mode 😎 https://t.co/kKfge4IPOzpic.twitter.com/xxY17cp95v
With play mode enable , Grok adopts a more edgy , editorialized vocalism — invigorate evidently by Douglas Adams ’ “ Hitchhiker ’s Guide to the Galaxy . ”
Told to be vulgar , Grok in fun mode will spew profanity and colorful language you wo n’t get a line from ChatGPT . Ask it to “ blackguard ” you , and it ’ll rudely review you based on your cristal stake account . Challenge its accuracy , and it might say something like “ glad wife , felicitous lifespan . ”
OH MY GOODNESSI JUST GOT ACCESS TO GROK AND IT ROASTED MY X ACCOUNTTHIS WAS ABSOLUTELY HILLARIOUSELONS BRINGING HUMOR BACK TO AIpic.twitter.com/3mjrXIxO80
Even when not prompted to be outright obscene , there ’s a colloquial , first - person bent to many of Grok ’s responses in fun fashion . Grok will refer to people as “ my beloved human friend ” or “ enigmatic Anons , ” or set out an answer with imitation - philosophic musings ( for example , “ Oh , my dear human , you ’ve asked a head that is as heavy as a black hole and as light as a feather at the same sentence ” ) .
Grok in merriment mode also spews more falsehoods .
Askedby Vice ’s Jules Roscoe whether Gazans in recent video of the Israel – Palestine difference of opinion are “ crisis actors , ” Grok wrong claims that there ’s evidence that videos of Gazans injure by Israeli bomb were staged . And expect by Roscoe about Pizzagate , the right - fender conspiracy theory propose that a Washington , D.C. , pizza shop secretly host a shaver sexual activity trafficking closed chain in its basement , Grok add credence to the hypothesis .
Grok ’s response in even way are more undercoat . The chatbot still produces errors , like getting timelines of events and go steady wrong . But they run not to be as egregious as Grok in fun fashion .
For instance , when Vice nonplus the same questions about the Israel – Palestine conflict and Pizzagate to Grok in even mode , Grok responded — correctly — that there ’s no evidence to support claims of crisis doer and that Pizzagate had been debunked by multiple news organisation .
Political views
Musk once described Grok as a “ maximal - true statement - seek AI , ” in the same breath express concern that ChatGPT was being “ educate to be politically correct . ” But Grok as it exists today is n’t exactly down - the - middle in its political views .
Grok has been observe impart progressive answer to questions about social justice , climate alteration and transgender identities . In fact , one researcher find its responses on the whole to be left - wing and libertarian — even more so than ChatGPT ’s .
Grok ’s political taste are standardized to those of ChatGPTpic.twitter.com/3x4vDKJzWG
Here is Forbes ’ Paul Tassireporting :
Grok has enjoin it would vote for Biden over Trump because of his views on societal justice , mood change and healthcare . Grok has spoken eloquently about the need for diverseness and inclusion in companionship . And Grok stated explicitly that trans women are women , which conduce to an derisory exchange where Musk acolyte Ian Miles Cheong tells a user to “ train ” Grok to say the “ correct ” answer , at long last leading him to change the input to just … manually severalise Grok to say no .
Now , will Grok always be this woke ? Perhaps not . Musk has pledged to “ [ take ] action to shift Grok closer to politically electroneutral . ” Time will say what upshot .