Elon Musk used biometric data from employees to program racy chatbot
Elon Musk aimed to make xAI's Grok chatbot the most popular in the world, seeing the female AI character Ani as central to that goal. Reports state that Musk directed staff to provide biometric data to help train the chatbot, characterized as highly sexualized, while he devoted long hours to advancing xAI's technology.
After a serious dispute with the president led to his departure from the White House, Musk immersed himself in work at the Palo Alto xAI offices, occasionally sleeping there as he pushed to catch up in the global race for advanced AI development.
According to The Wall Street Journal, Musk’s efforts were part of a wider competition against OpenAI's Sam Altman, who leads the U.S. pursuit of near-sentient artificial general intelligence, rivaling China’s AI initiatives.
Lily Lim, an xAI lawyer, allegedly told employees that the company was creating multiple avatars to interact with Grok users.
PC Magazine described Ani as a "sexy, NSFW, anime AI chatbotgirl." Employees were instructed to share their biometric data—faces and voices—to train the AI to behave and communicate more like humans. Those participating, primarily AI tutors, had to sign agreements granting xAI a "perpetual, worldwide, non-exclusive, sub-licensable, royalty-free license" over the biometric materials they provided.
Author Summary
Musk’s push to advance Grok involved controversial data collection from employees, reflecting the growing intensity and ethical tension within the AI arms race.