Elon Musk's Grok is back in the news with more controversy.
The generative AI has been causing a stir since it went online in November 2023, and with Musk billing it as the 'cheeky' chatbot that gives the responses that others like OpenAI's ChatGPT daren't, his champions have been cheering Grok's no-nonsense approach.
Of course, this has gotten Elon Musk into plenty of trouble, with Grok becoming obsessed with white genocide, and more recently, going on to praise Adolf Hitler.
Musk claims Grok was 'tricked' into sharing these views on Hitler, but with the chatbot telling users to hand it a mustache and referring to itself as 'MechaHitler', there are obvious concerns.
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The controversy continues, with Musk now recruiting for an especially specialist role at xAI. After selling X to xAI for a whopping $45 billion, it has further cemented the idea that the platform once known as Twitter is becoming an artificial intelligence playground.
As reported by Business Insider, the xAI career portal posted a job listing titled, "Fullstack Engineer - Waifus."
It comes just one day after Musk raised eyebrows when he released two AI 'companions' called 'Ani' and 'Rudi'. Waifu is a term used to describe a female anime character who people might think of as a romantic partner or wife. At a time when there are concerns about the psychological damages of users romanticising AI, some fear it's one step closer to a complete AI takeover where humans are obsolete.
xAI is looking for "exceptional multimedia engineers and product thinkers," who will be tasked with making "Grok's realtime avatar products fast, scalable, and reliable." The Palo Alto-based position has a pay scale of between $180,000 to $440,000, which is quite a sum.
Currently, Grok's iOS app includes the Ani avatar, who is a Japanese anime girl who's decked out in a black corset dress and lace choker. There's also a red panda called Rudi, with users able to toggle between the standard Rudi or his more offensive 'Bad Rudi' alter ego.
Musk says these features are only supposed to be available for Super Grok subscribers, with a male avatar listed as 'coming soon'.
Over on Reddit, the reaction to these new AI companions was mixed, especially as some fear we're heading toward a dystopian future where human interaction is lost to chatbots.
Hating the idea, one person wrote: "Grok taking the low road and it's gonna work and I'm already salty about it."
Another joked: "Gooning to Mecha Hitler. Truly peak internet moment."
Looking further ahead, a third mused: "I think in a few years there will be hundreds of companions for every taste and the ability to create them on the fly, including automatic character creation based on the analysis of your porn sites social network data."
Someone simply concluded: "We are literally nearing Blade Runner."
While it's clear Grok's companion rollout is going to stir up plenty of controversy, there's obviously enough interest to warrant a pivot into this corner of the industry.