There was a little bit of a hubbub in February because it emerged that OpenAI had seemingly bought AI.com in an effort to redirect it to the ChatGPT net interface. However now erstwhile backer, Twitter haver and X lover Elon Musk seems to have taken the dear area off their palms, or else somebody has finished it for him: AI.com now redirects to X.ai, the billionaire’s embryonic machine studying analysis outfit.
After all domains are purchased and bought each day. However two-letter .com domains are uncommon and extremely costly, particularly people who kind phrases or acquainted abbreviations. When AI.com began redirecting to OpenAI’s web site, Mashable identified that the area might hardly have bought for lower than IT.com’s $3.8 million the earlier 12 months, and sure attained a far greater value given the hype round synthetic intelligence generally.
Little question OpenAI hoped that the acquisition of AI.com would flip confused URL bar typers into lifetime customers. Or maybe it supposed to finally transfer its consumer-facing operations (like ChatGPT’s net shopper) over to the shorter area. It appears we’ll by no means know, as a result of now the area goes to X.ai.
The information appears to have first been reported by Analytics India Magazine (maybe a bidder itself in some unspecified time in the future), however the fact is exterior the switch, there’s treasured little to say concerning the swap. It’s simply weird and costly sufficient to warrant noting right here.
X.ai remains to be a largely notional group, with a handful of lecturers and engineers engaged on, one imagines, no matter Musk tells them to. Its said aim is “to know the true nature of the universe,” however they haven’t made any seen progress because the web site went up in July. Admittedly Musk has been busy throughout that point.
What might it imply? Did Sam Altman tire of his toy? Was the plan to shift to the brand new area scrapped in favor of a brand new one? Was the sale tentative to start with, or maybe a month-to-month lease? Was there a bidding struggle, or did somebody lose curiosity?
Regardless of the case, it finally ends up simply feeling like a pair wealthy guys squabbling over a shiny object. ChatGPT is essentially the most recognizable model in AI — so why pay tens of millions to start out a brand new one from scratch? And X.ai is already quick and memorable (or no less than it will likely be till there are eight different Musk firms referred to as X), and there’s nothing price on the positioning, so why pay a lot to redirect one other empty web site? It’s price noting that OpenAI by no means did really affirm it purchased the area, and Musk has not but, and would by no means return our emails.
Brand from a latest staging web site for AI.com
I’ll say that if I had $10 million and the chance to purchase AI.com, you recognize what I’d do? Redirect it to the apparent candidate after which dangle it in entrance of their opponents for a 50% markup. If that didn’t work, I’d swap it to the rival and supply it to the primary firm. Right here’s hoping some data superhighwayman (if you’ll) had the identical brainwave and squeezed one in every of these billionaires for a stable payday. If that’s the case, effectively performed.
I think that finally nobody really cares who owns AI.com, and folks in truth could also be suspicious of no matter company entity controls what is clearly an arrogance area. Let’s all simply agree to not use it. That may educate everybody a lesson.