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 among Silicon Valley’s main AI mannequin builders only a few years after it was based.
“In the present day 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 may maintain. We each felt {that a} new AI firm with a special 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 start out the agency after a dinner with Max Tegmark, the founding father of the Way forward for Life Institute, wherein they mentioned how AI programs could possibly be constructed safely to encourage the flourishing of future generations. In his submit, Babuschkin says his dad and mom immigrated to the U.S. from Russia in pursuit of a greater life for his or her youngsters.
Babuschkin’s departure comes after a tumultuous few months for xAI, wherein the corporate grew to become engrossed in a number of scandals associated to its AI chatbot Grok. As an illustration, Grok was discovered to cite 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 lately, xAI unveiled a brand new function in Grok that allowed customers to make AI-generated movies resembling nude public figures, similar 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.
Previous to co-founding xAI, Babuschkin was a part of a analysis staff at Google DeepMind that pioneered AlphaStar in 2019, a breakthrough AI system that might defeat top-ranked gamers on the online game StarCraft. Babuschkin additionally labored as a researcher at OpenAI within the years earlier than it launched ChatGPT.
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In his submit, Babuschkin particulars a number of the challenges he and Musk confronted in increase xAI. He notes that trade veterans referred to as xAI’s objective of constructing its Memphis, Tennessee supercomputer in simply three months “unimaginable.”
xAI was capable of construct its AI supercomputer in document time, nonetheless, environmentalists warn that the short-term gasoline generators powering the cluster are pumping out emissions into neighboring communities and exacerbating their longstanding well being points.
However, Babuschkin says he’s already trying again fondly on his time at xAI, and “appears like a proud dad or mum, driving away after sending their child away to varsity.”
“I discovered 2 priceless classes from Elon: #1 be fearless in rolling up your sleeves to personally dig into technical issues, #2 have a maniacal sense of urgency,” mentioned Babuschkin.
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