After controversial Hitler posts, Elon Musk's AI company may be offering thousands of dollars to engineers to create flirty avatars
Elon Musk's
xAI
is said to be offering
six-figure salaries
to engineers to develop AI "companions', a report claims. This move follows recent controversy where the
Grok chatbot
(developed by the Musk-owned AI startup) generated posts praising Adolf Hitler. Earlier this month,
Grok
faced criticism for sharing
antisemitic content
on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) including referring to itself as "MechaHitler," a video game version of Hitler. Now, the company is reportedly seeking "exceptional multimedia engineers and product thinkers" to enhance its AI avatars. According to a report by Business Insider, in addition to equity and benefits, xAI's latest job posting shows that the company is willing to pay between $180,000 to $440,000 for these Palo Alto-based roles, The focus is on making "Grok's realtime avatar products fast, scalable, and reliable."
What are these digital avatars and how they work
As per the report, the job listing titled
"Fullstack Engineer - Waifus"
recently appeared on xAI's careers page, just a day after the company rolled out two new AI "companions" on its Grok platform. The term "waifu" typically refers to female anime characters that fans may idealise as romantic partners.
This title will likely add one of the new characters: "Ani," a stylised Japanese anime girl dressed in a black corset and lace choker. The second character is "Rudi," an animated red panda with a switchable personality. Users can interact with either friendly "Rudi" or his more aggressive alter ego, "Bad Rudi." Both companions are currently accessible only via Grok's iPhone app.
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These new
AI companions
are designed with suggestive and provocative behaviors. "Ani" flirts with users and, with continued engagement, may appear in lingerie. Meanwhile, "Bad Rudi', is prone to using obscene language and hurling insults when enabled.
A third companion, which is a male anime character, is also listed in the app as "coming soon,' the report adds.
Earlier this week, Musk also noted that the feature will be exclusive to Super Grok subscribers, while both "Ani" and "Rudi" are available to all users, including those on the free tier.
Last week, xAI issued an apology for Grok's 'horrific behavior,' of praising Hitler. The company explained that outdated code had left the platform vulnerable to influence from existing user posts, even when those posts contained extremist content.
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