Tech mogul Elon Musk has revealed that his artificial intelligence (AI) startup, XAI, will launch a new AI-powered gaming studio to take on ‘giant corporations’ pushing ideologically-charged video games. Mr Musk was responding to a post by Dogecoin co-creator Billy Marcus, where Billy Marcus expressed dissatisfaction with the current state of gaming. The billionaire said his gaming studio would “make gaming great again”, referencing the MAGA movement of which Mr Musk was an essential part during the US presidential election.
“I don’t understand how game developers and game journalism got so ideologically captured. Gamers have always been anti-trolls, anti-greedy corporations, anti-BS. Gamers have always rejected stupid manipulative BS. Given, and they can tell someone is an outsider. Why succumb to the BS?” Mr. Marcus wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Responding to the post, Mr Musk said: “There are a lot of game studios that are owned by big corporations. xAI is going to launch an AI game studio to make games great again!”
A lot of game studios that are owned by big companies. @xAI An AI is about to launch a game studio to make games great again!
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 27 November 2024
Earlier, the Tesla CEO had also criticized the inclusion of pronoun selection feature in the upcoming Xbox game called Avoided. “Having pronouns in a fantasy video game is completely unacceptable,” he wrote on X with an angry emoji.
Describing AI gaming as the “future” of the industry, Mr Musk also responded to a post complaining about Microsoft’s gaming division discriminating against white people during the hiring process.
“Microsoft’s gaming division is opting out of hiring whites to work on their video games. All of their new employees are ineligible gay and black people because company executives have an apparent grudge against “crusty old white guys.” The mandate is there, read this post Mr Musk responded, tagging Microsoft CEO Nadella: “Um, @satyanadella, this is illegal.”
umm, @satyanadellaThis is illegal…
– Elon Musk (@elonmusk) 27 November 2024
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What is XAI?
Mr Musk launched xAI in July 2023 as an alternative to OpenAI’s ChatGPT. In March, xAI said it would open-source its ChatGPT challenger “Grok”, giving the public free access to experiment with the code behind the technology.
XAI managed to raise $6 billion in Series B funding in May, reaching a post-money valuation of $24 billion, which was backed by investors including Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital. A new $5 billion fundraising round is expected soon which could double xAI’s valuation to $50 billion in just six months.
