Opinion | In Musk vs Altman, The Winner Might Just Be A Third Guy - Of Indian Roots

Is the tail trying to wag the dog to build Aravind Srinivas's Perplexity? Or is it because the "other giants" in this tech race like to lift a David on their shoulders to fight a Goliath like ChatGPT?

Opinion | In Musk vs Altman, The Winner Might Just Be A <i>Third</i> Guy - Of Indian Roots

While the world had its eyes on US President Donald Trump meeting his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin in cold Alaska last week to discuss an end to the Ukraine war, another war was possibly brewing in the technology industry over artificial intelligence (AI) between two comparably colourful individuals: OpenAI's Sam Altman, the young father of conversational engine ChatGPT, and Elon Musk, the father of Tesla, X, and Grok, the new kid among AI's big boys.

It looks like the start of an AI marathon in which Google's Gemini, Microsoft-backed ChatGPT, X's Grok, and Facebook's Meta AI start as favourites. But, this is an industry in which we have seen giants fall. New stars rise at an incredible pace - and here's perhaps where we need to locate last week's potshot shootout between Altman and Musk, which was conducted publicly on Musk-controlled Twitter-turned-X. Musk and Altman used to be partners at OpenAI before the Tesla CEO left. Like many things in business and politics, this is a friends-turned-foes game.

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Things Are Bigger Than They Seem

News is out that ChatGPT is leading the AI assistant race in terms of both downloads and revenues, marching well past Grok, Copilot (ChatGPT's Microsoft cousin for office productivity), and Anthropic-owned Claude. But I won't be in a hurry to declare winners or write obituaries, simply because intellectual property, various national policies, user needs, and, above all, state regulation, play major roles. Picture it like a marathon race blended with a snakes-and-ladders game, where dice are thrown loaded and unloaded.

Also Read | Why Perplexity, Valued At $18 Billion, Made $34.5 Billion Offer For Chrome

When the Internet arrived in India (and pretty much elsewhere) in the mid-1990s, AOL and Hotmail were popular e-mail services, Netscape Navigator the top browser, and Yahoo and AltaVista the leading search engines. Google was then just a bubbling idea at the Stanford University campus. Things change fast in the technology roller-coaster. Those who know this game use whatever means they can to stay ahead. Altman and Musk are now having such a fight because the stakes are high while the ground may be slippery.

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A Disgruntled Musk

Entry-level shoo-ins are important in the Internet industry, and thus, it makes sense for Altman to piggyback on Microsoft, whose software grip on global businesses as well as individuals is very strong. Naturally, Musk is upset over Apple not putting his Grok on its favourite list. "Hey @Apple App Store, why do you refuse to put either X or Grok in your 'Must Have' section when X is the #1 news app in the world and Grok is #5 among all apps?" he asked. "Are you playing politics?" That began what one might call Operation Eyeballs, or its newest episode. As a "free and fair" app store owner, Apple officially denies bias. However, last year, the iPhone maker integrated ChatGPT into "Apple experiences" in a publicised partnership - one that might well eventually come up for regulatory investigation.

While Musk may have an interesting argument there, Altman pointed out, not so gently, that Grok is itself riding on Musk's ownership of X as a popular social media platform. OpenAI also has a chequered history as it turned from a non-profit entity to a for-profit company, triggering ethical and social controversies in its surge.

Market Is King

What matters here are two things. One, how much the X-based entry for Grok or the Microsoft alliance for ChatGPT impresses users enough to make them get hooked, or how market-share and tech-bundling issues are viewed by regulators who may blow the whistle and show yellow or red cards in a game in which high-tech entrepreneurs often behave like unruly European footballers.

US-style capitalism claims to boost healthy competition. Giants can be told by anti-trust (monopoly) regulators to break up, as had happened with telecom giant AT&T's 'Bell System'. Market shares and trade practices are measured and intellectual property claims examined as judges and lawyers lay threadbare the nitty-gritty of the strangely-poised technology industry, in which competitors often run hand-in-hand or fight hand-in-glove with rivals.

In his argument to counter Musk's Apple-linked charges, Altman offers proof that Musk does some algorithm-fixing to boost his own tweets - and by extension, Grok.

We have to watch this space to see if Musk and Altman take each other to court.

Don't Forget The Lawsuits

Now, sample some lawsuits in the industry to get an idea. In 2011, Apple and Samsung fought over allegations of patent violation in smartphone design on features such as the pinch-to-zoom function and even the device's look. The multi-country battle led to new laws being drafted to govern design. Microsoft recently faced a lawsuit by a group of authors who say it used their books without permission to "train" its Megatron AI model. Media baron Rupert Murdoch and others have had public spats with Google over their content being usurped by search algorithms with little or no compensation.

Microsoft faced regulatory trouble for bundling its Explorer (the forerunner to Edge) browser with its popular Windows operating system. European regulators have pushed to give browser choice to users, for which an agreement was concluded in 2009. More recently, their Digital Markets Act insists on a design to allow users to select their preferred browser and easily uninstall others. This means that Google cannot easily push its Chrome or Microsoft its Edge, along with their respective core offerings like search or office software. This allows Firefox, Opera, and others to offer competing browser alternatives. After all, the browser and search engine are often your gateway to various things once you log in to the Internet.

Whom To Trust?

Where do AI engines fit into this? Honestly, I am not sure because things have become more jumbled in a manner that makes anti-competitive bullying or alliances more difficult to police. In the Musk vs Altman battle, the 'trustworthiness' of an AI engine is important and is becoming a bone of contention. A funny thing is how ChatGPT and Grok are themselves being asked to pick the best in the AI assistant parade. Remember, AI can generate as well as process unverified facts, contested ideas, concepts, and ethics. They form an important part of what I would call the 'battle for trust'.

Also Read | "Ditch Instagram, Learn AI Or Get Left Behind," Says Perplexity AI CEO

Here's where Chennai-born, IIT Madras-educated Aravind Srinivas, a former Google and OpenAI engineer, may turn out to be a dark horse with his three-year-old startup, Perplexity AI. Perplexity, my favourite AI engine thus far, has made a headline-grabbing but largely cosmetic $34.5-billion takeover bid for Google Chrome, which, as an Alphabet-owned sibling of its search engine, falls into a regulatory grey area on bundling or access issues.

Why The Giants Are Backing This Startup

If a regulatory rope falls on Chrome and Google's AI engine is put at arm's length from Chrome, then Perplexity, which owns a new-age browser called Comet, may well rise and shine. But more importantly, 31-year-old Aravind has the backing of some of the most powerful tech industry figures, such as Amazon's Jeff Bezos and AI-chip maker Nvidia. That explains his audacious Chrome offer, because Perplexity is itself valued at only $14 billion.

Is the tail trying to wag the dog to build the Perplexity brand? Or is it because the "other giants" in this tech race like to lift a David on their shoulders to fight a Goliath like ChatGPT?

We don't quite know.

As of now, the AI battlefield resembles the overall Internet industry in the 1990s. If you keep Trump's MAGA nationalism and India's own Atmanirbhar technology ambitions in mind - not to mention China's low-cost DeepSeek AI - we are headed into a new-age war, in which giants are embracing each other with daggers in their hands.

(Madhavan Narayanan is a senior editor, writer and columnist with more than 30 years of experience, having worked for Reuters, The Economic Times, Business Standard, and Hindustan Times after starting out in the Times of India Group.)

Disclaimer: These are the personal opinions of the author

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