Elon Musk's AI startup xAI has made it mandatory for employees to install 'spy software' on their laptops
Elon Musk's AI startup xAI has reportedly implemented a controversial policy which requires all its employees to install a 'spyware software' on their laptops issued by the company. This move of the company which aims to enhance the security has started discussions about the privacy of the employees. As reported by Business Insider, the staff at xAI involved in the training of Grok has been asked to install a monitoring tool called Hubstaff, which will keep a track of the websites visited, apps used, mouse movements and more.
Elon Musk's AI startup xAI ask employees to install 'spy software' on their laptops
According to a report by Business Insider, Elon Musk's AI startup has asked the employees training Grok to download and install a workforce management system called Hubstaff. This monitoring toll is designed to keep track of employee activity including keystrokes, screen activity, and application usage.
The company has not yet revealed the exact reason behind this new policy, but it is speculated to be a response to the highly competitive and sensitive nature of AI development, where intellectual property and data security are paramount.
Initially, the directive applied to all employees, regardless of whether they had company-issued laptops, with a July 11 deadline for compliance. Later the company asked the employees using their personal devices to either purchase a new device using the xAI $50 per month tech stipend or create different profiles to separate their work from personal browsing.
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The company's HR team said that the new software would help the company in streamlining the work process and will also offer better insights into daily tutoring activities. 'This new tool serves to streamline work processes, provide clearer insights into daily tutoring activities, and ensure resources align with Human Data priorities," the company's human resources team said in a mass email to employees.
However, the employees feel that the new monitoring tool is 'surveillance disguised as productivity'.
The report further adds that apart from Hubstaff, xAI also uses HR manager Rippling to clock the hours of workers. Along with this, the company's in-house system Starfleet tracks the amount of time the tutors spent on each task.
Elon Musk's xAI apologises for what 'happened on July 8
Meanwhile, it has been a tough time for xAI. The Elon Musk-owned company apologised 'for the horrific behaviour that many experienced' for 16 hours, starting on July 8. Through the official Grok account on X (formerly Twitter), the AI company said that 'the update was to provide helpful and truthful responses to users' but it spit out responses which 'contained extremist views.'
xAI has also provided an explanation on what went wrong. It said that the incident stemmed from a July code update that activated deprecated instructions, causing Grok to reflect extremist views from X posts for 16 hours, a vulnerability not anticipated despite pre-release testing, as revealed by xAI's investigation.
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