What even is Grok, anyway?

The meaning behind the name of xAI’s chatbot is peak Elon Musk.

Credit: Rafael Henrique/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images

I guess there aren’t enough technical hurdles to clear at the company formerly known as Twitter because, today, CEO Elon Musk announced the platform would soon be getting an AI assistant courtesy of his company xAI.

Musk says, “In some important respects, it is the best [AI assistant] that currently exists,” which isn’t saying much. In some respects, I could be a pop star (great hair, okay singing voice), but that doesn’t mean that I am one.

What is Grok?

Anyways, the AI is called Grok, which is a verb that essentially means to read the room. Oxford Languages describes it as the ability to “understand (something) intuitively or by empathy.” It’s an interesting name to give an AI, considering that intuition is based on verbal, physiological, and auditory cues that can be hard to articulate to another human, let alone a machine.

The name dovetails with Musk’s obsession with sci-fi, having originated in Robert Heinlein’s 1961 book “Stranger in a Strange Land.” The story follows a human named Valentine Michael Smith, who is raised by Martians and goes to Earth to understand its culture.

In the book, “grok” is a word in the Martian language (notably not understood by humans) that means “to drink,” though it has expanded to “meant to take something in so thoroughly that it becomes part of you.”

Given this definition, xAI’s Grok may hope to “drink” as much information as possible from the internet, X, and its interactions with programmers and regular people to achieve its understanding of humanity.

Grok is not available to the public yet, but when it is, it’s going to cost you. Musk says Grok will only be accessible to subscribers of X Premium+, which can be purchased for “just $16/month via web.” By comparison, ChatGPT’s subscription plan, ChatGPT Plus, costs $20 a month, but a free version of the chatbot is also available to all.

Elizabeth is a culture reporter at Mashable covering digital culture, fandom communities, and how the internet makes us feel. Before joining Mashable, she spent six years in tech, doing everything from running a wifi hardware beta program to analyzing YouTube content trends like K-pop, ASMR, gaming, and beauty. You can find more of her work for outlets like The Guardian, Teen Vogue, and MTV News right here. 

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