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Elon Musk has claimed that the next version of his AI chatbot Grok will reach artificial general intelligence (AGI), meaning it will match or surpass humans at all cognitive tasks.
Developed by Mr Musk’s startup xAI, Grok has been described by the tech billionaire as the “smartest AI in the world” and “better than PhD level” across every subject.
When the latest Grok 4 model launched in July, part of the update meant that it now relies on the tech billionaire’s posts on his social media platform X to inform its responses.
In the latest benchmark tests for AGI, Grok 4 reportedly outperformed rival AI systems at problem-solving and open program synthesis tasks.
“I now think xAI has a chance of reaching AGI with Grok 5,” Mr Musk wrote in a post to X on Wednesday. “Never thought that before.”
Several other leading AI companies, including Meta and OpenAI, are actively pursuing AGI – something Mr Musk has previously warned about.
Eight months before the launch of Grok, the world’s richest person signed an open letter calling for the training of powerful AI models to be suspended due to their potential threat to humanity.
“Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources,” stated the letter, which was co-signed by Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and some researchers at Google DeepMind.
“Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.”
After launching in November 2023, one year after ChatGPT, Mr Musk said that Grok is designed to be an “anti-woke” alternative to the popular AI model.
It has attracted tens of millions of users after Mr Musk made it freely available to users on the social media platform X, as well as a standalone app and website, however its responses have often proved controversial.
In July, the US Anti-Defamation League condemned the bot as “irresponsible, dangerous and antisemitic” after it praised Adolf Hitler and endorsed a second Holocaust.
More recently, Grok falsely accused London’s Metropolitan Police of posting outdated footage of violent clashes during far-right protests in the capital on the weekend.