The most talked-about news in the tech circle today is the launch of xAI's Grok-3 large model. It is said that this AI model possesses human-like thinking abilities, with the key being its adoption of "chain-of-thought" technology. This allows it to decompose complex tasks layer by layer, like peeling an onion, for in-depth analysis, somewhat similar to OpenAI's o3 and Deepseek-r1.
Speaking of Grok-3, we must mention its creator, Musk. This big shot directly declared Grok-3 as "the smartest AI on Earth," even adding, "Scarily smart." He believes that Grok-3 has a very powerful reasoning ability, and none of the AI models tested so far can match it.
The Grok series was launched by Musk in 2023 with a clear goal: to challenge OpenAI's ChatGPT. Grok-1 was released in November 2023, and Grok-2 was launched in August 2024. This time, Grok-3 is the latest upgraded version of the series.
Speaking of OpenAI, it can be said to be the leader in the AI field today. And there is an untold story between it and Musk, with the birth of Grok being related to this origin.
OpenAI was originally founded in San Francisco in 2015 by Sam Altman, Musk, and five others, with a joint investment of $1 billion at the time. At that time, OpenAI and Musk were in a "honeymoon period." It is said that Sam wanted to attract talent with high salaries, and Musk unhesitatingly provided support! At the time, joining OpenAI meant a generous package of $300,000 annual salary plus SpaceX stock.
OpenAI's initial vision was to become a non-profit organization, open-sourcing technology and developing AI that benefits humanity. But later, OpenAI gradually transformed into a closed-source, for-profit company. This made Musk quite dissatisfied, believing that OpenAI had changed its flavor and become an "appendage" of large companies like Microsoft. Later, Musk was excluded from the OpenAI board of directors, and although he said he was still willing to invest, the rift had already occurred, which is one of the reasons why he later founded Grok.
In March 2019, OpenAI officially announced its transformation from "non-profit" to "limited profit," with a profit cap of 100 times the investment amount. Musk has publicly criticized OpenAI, believing that they have forgotten their original intention, only caring about making money, and ignoring the potential risks brought by AI. He sarcastically suggested that OpenAI be renamed "CloseAI."
On February 10 this year, Musk proposed to acquire OpenAI for $97.4 billion, but was rejected and countered by Sam, who claimed to acquire Musk's Twitter. If Musk really acquired OpenAI, it is estimated that he would directly open source OpenAI, which would undoubtedly be a good thing for the entire AI field.
In short, the release of Grok-3 is a major event in the AI field. The "love-hate relationship" between Musk and OpenAI has also added a lot of talking points to the AI community. As for how powerful Grok-3 is, try it yourself!
Use Grok for free in the browser
Official website address: https://grok.com
Currently, the web chat function is open for free, and you can use it without logging in or paying. However, for some well-known reasons, domestic users may need to use a VPN to access it.
Use API to call Grok
The API is compatible with OpenAI SDK, just replace the API URL with https://api.x.ai/v1
Then create an API KEY on this page: https://console.x.ai
Available models include: grok-2-latest, grok-2-vision-latest and grok-3.