xAI’s Grok Might End Up as A Joke 

“OpenAI generated over 1.3 billion impressions on X in the past few days—more than twice what we saw with the Grammys. There’s literally no substitute for X,” exclaimed X’s chief, Linda Yaccarino, suggesting that X was the primary source of gossip for everything happening around OpenAI in the last few days.

Linda is not wrong in a way. From tech enthusiasts to journalists, everyone was glued to X, trying to make sense of the events unfolding at OpenAI. This has sparked a fresh conversation about whether mainstream media is on the verge of an existential crisis.

Furthermore, to boost engagement on X, Elon Musk is planning to launch Grok next week. This generative AI chatbot (trained on posts from X) aims to address queries on a wide array of topics, ranging from sports and politics to tech.

Although X is recognised as the leading platform for real-time news, it also has a reputation for widespread misinformation. It will be intriguing to observe how xAI’s Grok navigates the decision of what to incorporate and what to exclude.

X vs Legacy Media

Elon Musk recently posted on X that “Legacy media companies are desperately trying to kill this platform by any means possible”. He is not wrong.

The thing is legacy media is not going anywhere anytime soon. The challenge that legacy media faced until now was engagement, an area where social media has had the upper hand.

Even if we consider OpenAI’s saga, although X provided information from sources like OpenAI’s or Microsoft employees, there was also a lot of noise, making it challenging to identify the accuracy of the information. Moreover, all the significant breaking news came from reputable publications such as The Information, Bloomberg, The New York Times, alongside AIM.

While comment sections on news websites were the traditional means for readers to interact, the advent of generative AI presents vast opportunities. News publications can integrate generative AI elements to their websites to quiz readers, conduct polls, provide answers to queries based on the article, suggest more relevant content, and explore other engaging features.

Publications like Forbes, the New York Times, The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal have already started experimenting with AI. Forbes recently added a generative AI chatbot called Adelaide where readers have the option to pose precise questions or provide broad topic areas, receiving suggested articles related to their inquiry. Additionally, they also obtain a condensed response to their query, given that it falls within the coverage spectrum of Forbes.

Opinion and Content Matters

On X, users share an array of content, spanning from serious to humorous, and from sarcasm to technological jargon. Determining which posts Grok should rely on for generating answers would be no cakewalk. Moreover, LLMs often hallucinate and produce inaccurate information. Depending solely on X posts might pose challenges for users.

It is more convenient for the users to turn to reputable media to learn about the latest developments as they are verified and come with a context. In the past, incidents have occurred where users found it difficult to make sense of what was posted on X.

To better itself over time, Grok comes with the facility where users can provide feedback to the xAI team regarding how the AI addressed a question. This involves suggesting an ideal response to contribute to the AI’s ongoing training, which is a move in a positive decision.

While Grok might be a valuable addition to X to increase engagement, it will likely take a considerable amount of time for it to truly become an alternative to legacy media.

Not to rain on Grok’s parade, it still could be a fun chatbot that Musk intends it to be.

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