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xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

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Re: xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

#111

Post by katechon »

dagmx wrote: post #55
silvester23 wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There used to be a list of people on the about page but they changed it, apparently. Here's a snapshot that still shows it: https://web.archive.org/web/20240415120557/x.ai/about I don't know enough about the AI/ML scene to say if any of these are notable people.

Thanks! That page is a good find. Very few of the names stand out to me (being adjacently familiar with the space). However I did search based on your link… (Edit: with the exception of Chris Szegedy, thanks to the reply below for pointing that out) Most of them seem to have been secondary/tertiary people on the projects listed. Definitely feels a bit like resume padding. It’s also unfortunate that searching for the…

Imagine inventing the Adam optimizer just for some guy on Hacker news to accuse you of resume padding

Re: xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

#112

Post by [deleted] »

rvz wrote: post #29

Like how I have questioned so much ridiculous unjustified valuations in the AI space, with the likes of Perplexity, Stability, Inflection, etc which these AI labs are not making enough money to support themselves. How is xAI worth $24BN? I bet the reason is because Elon Musk. But until I see a significant jump in xAI making at least $100M+ a quarter, I don't think that is enough to justify that valuation to even be a…

[deleted]

Re: xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

#114

Post by b3lvedere »

lionkor wrote: post #6

> The company’s mission is to understand the true nature of the universe. I yawned so hard my jaw unlocked. Can't wait to see groundbreaking... checks notes ... "advancements in various applications, optimizations, and extensions of the model". Do these companies only hire yes men?

It kinda reminds me of James Bond Diamonds are Forever where the main scientist is convinced Blofeld is doing the right thing until the very bitter end.

Re: xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

#115

Post by defrost »

0xDEADFED5 wrote: post #91
defrost wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Are you aware of the recent issues with BYD and other Chinese EV brands? No, but I'd like to know more. > Entire dealerships have gone up in flames from dangerous vehicles. Not lone incidents but tens of dealerships at least, in just this month. Wow! Here's one: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c2544ndvkepo ( Although no brand is given and it's a " possibly " on being caused by an EV ) Can you provide links to 19…

the main source i can find that seems to be the origin for "10 BYD dealerships burned since 2021" (carscoop) references this article: https://www.ntdtv.com/b5/2024/05/16/a103881785.html (which actually lists 11 minus the most recent) translation seems to be mostly accurate, but i can't be arsed into researching the locations listed. but yes, tens of dealerships per month seems like a bit of an exaggeration

> tens of dealerships per month seems like a bit of an exaggeration

Certainly an extraordinary claim requiring evidence :-)

Re: xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

#116

Post by benterix »

lionkor wrote: post #6

> The company’s mission is to understand the true nature of the universe. I yawned so hard my jaw unlocked. Can't wait to see groundbreaking... checks notes ... "advancements in various applications, optimizations, and extensions of the model". Do these companies only hire yes men?

These people always exist. They pick up whatever is en vogue and sell it to investors. What happens later is of secondary importance, what matters is that money changed hands.

Re: xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

#118

Post by nomel »

gizajob wrote: post #71
lionkor wrote: post #6

> The company’s mission is to understand the true nature of the universe. I yawned so hard my jaw unlocked. Can't wait to see groundbreaking... checks notes ... "advancements in various applications, optimizations, and extensions of the model". Do these companies only hire yes men?

“The company’s mission is to understand the true nature of the universe” - There’s no way an LLM is going to get anywhere near understanding this. The true nature of the universe is unlikely to be captured in language.

Considering what’s at Tesla, I don’t think it makes sense to assume they’ll be constraining themselves to text/LLM.

But on the philosophical side, if an understanding can’t be communicated, does it exist? We humans only have various movements and vibrations of flesh, sensing those, text, and images to communicate.

Re: xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

#119

Post by mgh2 »

lionkor wrote: post #6

> The company’s mission is to understand the true nature of the universe. I yawned so hard my jaw unlocked. Can't wait to see groundbreaking... checks notes ... "advancements in various applications, optimizations, and extensions of the model". Do these companies only hire yes men?

The technology's applications are so broad that its exploratory nature in the mission is expected

Re: xAI announces series B funding round of $6B

#120

Post by klunger »

> xAI will continue on this steep trajectory of progress over the coming months, with multiple exciting technology updates and products soon to be announced.

There is a lot of potential for using AI in drug discovery and development, biotech more broadly and chemistry/material science. Pharma is investing heavily in this right now. If useful, the output here could potentially also support Neuralink and even SpaceX.

Coupled with the line about the "true nature of the universe", I guessed this was really about entering that space.

But when you look at the careers page [https://x.ai/careers#open-roles], they are only hiring AI engineers. No biochemists or MDs, material scientists or any other natural science domains. So, if natural science discovery is actually on the road map, either: - it is in the long term future - they have no idea what they are doing

More likely, they are not going for natural science and this is basically just a play to compete with openAI. And, in that case, I don't understand how they convinced investors to put 6 billion dollars into it.

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