OpenAI's Social Network? Sam Altman’s Latest Plan Against Elon Musk’s X

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman appears to be building a social network as part of his latest plan to escalate the rivalry against Elon Musk’s X (formerly Twitter). The AI company is reportedly speaking to several people, asking them for feedback on an under-development prototype based on ChatGPT’s image generation capabilities. If it materialises, OpenAI’s upcoming social media network is expected to counter X and other leading platforms, including Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook.

According to The Verge, OpenAI’s project focused on a social network is in early stages. Even though the Altman-led company is seeking feedback from “outsiders,” whether OpenAI will integrate the social network into ChatGPT or launch it as a standalone app is unclear. However, ChatGPT integration would make more sense for the company that saw its AI chatbot app on top of the charts on the Android and iOS app marketplaces.

Altman likely wants to up the ante against Musk with the alleged social network. OpenAI is engaged in a legal case with Elon Musk, who has accused the AI company of leveraging his funds as a non-profit to support the strategy to turn into a for-profit. Altman’s banter with Musk on X has also gained quite attention. In February, Musk said he would buy OpenAI for $97.4 billion — to which Altman replied: “no thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”

OpenAI’s rumoured social network is expected to look like X, but it may also be an equivalent to Facebook. Previously, Meta said it would launch a standalone Meta AI app to counter ChatGPT. Keeping in line with his wit, Altman said, “ok fine maybe we’ll do a social app.”

But apart from being an ammo against Musk and Zuckerberg, OpenAI’s social network could help ChatGPT offer better real-time information. The company’s foundational models currently rely on search engines and social media networks to gather information. On the other hand, xAI’s Grok scours X to use real-time data for quick answers, while Llama is trained on Facebook and Instagram’s data. A social network could boost ChatGPT’s real-time information-gathering capabilities.

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