Learning about AI can be so confusing once you realize there are multiple acronyms to describe the same thing.
And in some cases there is one acronym that means TWO totally separate ideas in AI, such as XAI!
The good news is that you can understand a lot of them with relatively simple explanations and have a lot more confidence navigating the acronym field.
Let’s start with the first because it’s the most well known.
xAI: Elon Musk’s AI Company
Elon Musk started xAI in 2023 as kind of an umbrella company for his artificial intelligence and technology ventures with the goal of understanding the universe.
As marketers it’s worth paying attention to the marketing of xAI, with close attention to the messaging and visuals!
While other AI companies are more definitively tech-focused in their marketing, xAI is immediately captivating and exciting with the “understand the universe” branding.
Marketers can also get a great taste of generative AI through Grok, which is xAI’s chatbot (like ChatGPT or Copilot). If you sign into X (formerly Twitter) you can have a lot of fun with Grok.
All you need to do is @grok in a message or reply and Grok will respond to you! It’s a great way to start fact checking or understand a topic more deeply.
Also worth noting for marketers: the controversy surrounding Grok and some pretty eye-raising behavior.
So what is the other XAI?
XAI: Explainable Artificial Intelligence
It might surprise you to learn that as a human race in the early days of AI we already don’t fully understand how AI actually works in many cases.
Most of the news we’re exposed to is in the realm of AI chats misleading humans with faulty information but there are much more serious implications at play.
There is a whole field of research called XAI, which means explainable AI, that aims to understand how AI models arrive at decisions.
There is what you can think of as a “black box” that is really difficult to look inside of to see what processes led to the decision made by an AI.
Why does this matter?
Think about the military. Every organization and human on Earth is jumping into AI, but for many, like the military, it’s outright dangerous and irresponsible to not know exactly what you’re using.
In warfare specifically, the military needs to be able to understand and trust completely any systems it designs and deploys.
The military example is a great way to understand xAI, and the Department of Defense’s research agency has a great explainer on this field and why it matters.
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