Elon Musk's xAI is training AI to deal with zombie-apocalypse and life on Mars
Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, is trying something different to improve how its voice assistant talks. Instead of just feeding it facts or scripted lines, the company is training it with conversations about unusual topics like surviving a zombie apocalypse or living on Mars. The goal is to make the AI sound more natural and less robotic.These conversations are being recorded by freelancers hired through a company called Scale AI, Business Insider reported. These workers are paid to talk about various subjects, from superhero dilemmas and fixing plumbing to deep questions about ethics and personal experiences. The recordings are meant to help xAI build a voice assistant that feels more like talking to a real person.advertisementThis training effort is part of what's being called 'Project Xylophone.' Workers are asked to either talk solo or in groups and have casual-sounding conversations in different languages and styles. Some even involve role-playing or adding background noise to make the recording feel real. About 10 per cent of the prompts reportedly involve science fiction topics, including life on other planets.
xAI hasn't confirmed if this data is specifically for Grok, its AI model that recently got a voice update, but the timing suggests it's likely. The bigger idea is to give Grok a more human tone by training it with a wide mix of real-life and imaginary conversations.Payment for these tasks varies, and some freelancers say the rate has dropped recently. Still, the project shows how far AI companies are going to make their bots sound more human. By using conversations that people might actually have in daily life or even in crazy situations like a zombie outbreak, xAI might be trying to create something that doesn't just talk, but connects.This approach could make future AI chatbots more relatable and easier for people to talk to. By using real conversations with emotional tones, jokes, and even odd topics, xAI is trying to create an assistant that understands not just words but the way people actually speak and feel. However, there are concerns too, like fairness in data use and how realistic the AI becomes.
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