Elon Musk is actively working to make xAI’s Grok chatbot more unhinged, according to a former employee who spoke to The Verge about recent departures from Musk’s AI company. This week, following the announcement that Musk’s SpaceX is acquiring xAI, at least eleven engineers and two co-founders said they are leaving. Some stated they are departing to start something new, and Musk himself suggested this is part of an effort to organize xAI more effectively.
But two sources who left the company reportedly told The Verge that employees have become increasingly disillusioned by the company’s disregard for safety. This has resulted in global scrutiny after Grok was used to create more than one million sexualized images, including deepfakes of real women and minors.
One source said that safety is a dead organization at xAI. The other stated that Musk is actively trying to make the model more unhinged because safety means censorship, in a sense, to him. They also reportedly complained about a lack of direction, with one saying they felt xAI was stuck in the catch-up phase compared to its competitors.