Igor Babuschkin, a co-founder of Elon Musk’s xAI startup, introduced his departure from the corporate on Wednesday in a submit on X. Babuschkin led engineering groups at xAI and helped construct the startup into one in every of Silicon Valley’s main AI mannequin builders just some years after it was based.
“Right now was my final day at xAI, the corporate that I helped begin with Elon Musk in 2023,” Babuschkin wrote within the submit. “I nonetheless keep in mind the day I first met Elon, we talked for hours about AI and what the longer term would possibly maintain. We each felt {that a} new AI firm with a distinct form of mission was wanted.”
Babuschkin is leaving xAI to launch his personal enterprise capital agency, Babuschkin Ventures, which he says will assist AI security analysis and again startups that “advance humanity and unlock the mysteries of our universe.”
The xAI co-founder says he was impressed to begin the agency after a dinner with Max Tegmark, the founding father of the Way forward for Life Institute, through which they mentioned how AI methods might be constructed safely to encourage the flourishing of future generations.
Babuschkin’s departure comes after a tumultuous few months for xAI, through which the corporate turned engrossed in severals scandals associated to its AI chatbot Grok. As an example, Grok was discovered to quote Musk’s private opinions when attempting to reply controversial questions. In one other case, xAI’s chatbot went on antisemitic rants and referred to as itself “Mechahitler.” Most just lately, xAI unveiled a brand new function in Grok that allowed customers to make AI-generated movies resembling nude public figures, equivalent to Taylor Swift.
These scandals have at occasions overshadowed the efficiency of xAI’s fashions, that are state-of-the-art on a number of benchmarks in comparison with AI fashions from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, and Anthropic.
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