Is safety is ‘dead’ at xAI?

In Brief

Elon Musk is “actively” moving to marque xAI’s Grok chatbot “more unhinged,” according to a erstwhile worker who spoke to The Verge astir caller departures from Musk’s AI company.

This week, pursuing the announcement that Musk’s SpaceX is acquiring xAI (which antecedently acquired his societal media institution X), astatine slightest 11 engineers and two co-founders said they’re leaving the company. Some said they’re departing to commencement thing new, and Musk himself suggested this is portion of an effort to signifier xAI much effectively.

But 2 sources who near the institution (at slightest 1 of them earlier the existent wave) reportedly told The Verge that employees person go progressively disillusioned by the company’s disregard for safety, resulting successful planetary scrutiny aft Grok was utilized to create much than 1 cardinal sexualized images, including deepfakes of existent women and minors.

One root said, “Safety is simply a dormant org astatine xAI,” portion the different said that Musk is “actively is trying to marque the exemplary much unhinged due to the fact that information means censorship, successful a sense, to him.”

They besides reportedly complained astir a deficiency of direction, with 1 saying they felt xAI was “stuck successful the catch-up phase” compared to competitors.

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