Musk's ChatGPT rival 'Grok' can humor your requests for drug recipes

Elon Musk’s AI venture xAI has released a new chatbot named Grok to rival the likes of ChatGPT and Google Bard. According to the company, Grok is modeled after Douglas Adams’ sci-fi franchise “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.” The chatbot is also said to have “a bit of a wit” and “a rebellious streak.”

xAI recommends users should not use Grok if they don’t have a sense of humor. The chatbot’s creators also claim it has a fundamental advantage over other conversational AIs on the market thanks to its “real-time knowledge of the world via the X platform.” That means Grok learns from posts put out on X (formerly Twitter).

“It will also answer spicy questions rejected by most other AI systems,” xAI wrote in its introductory post for Grok. Musk posted an example of this with a response from Grok about a user query asking for step-by-step instructions to make Cocaine. Of course, the AI didn’t just dish out a recipe for the drug, but it entertained the question nevertheless. If you ask ChatGPT the same, it will simply reply with a robotic refusal for the request.

Right now, Grok is only available to select verified X users who sign up for xAI’s early access program. The chatbot is a very early beta product and has only been trained for two months. However, the team expects it to improve with each passing week.

When it rolls out widely, the Grok AI assistant will be provided as part of the X Premium membership at $16/month.