Musk takes

Elon Musks Xai leans into his exaggerated AI companion, who made the company debut on Monday. On the last day, the company gave several signs that it would continue to invest in the product of the companion that enables users to interact with stylized and animated characters that are operated by GROK.

The original companions, a red panda called Bad Rudi and an anime character named Ani, seemed to provoke the controversy. Ani quickly becomes sexually explicit and evil Rudi becomes vulgar and violent. Xai seems to bend into the angular brand with its latest announcements.

The company currently wants to hire an engineer “Waifus” in full stack. The job seems to have been published on Tuesday, one day after Musk announced the creation of Grok's companions. “Waifus” is a term that refers to fictional female anime characters with which fans grow romantic associations.

On Wednesday, Musk announced a third GROK companion who would imitate the personality of “Edward Cullen von Twilight and Christian Gray from 50 Shades”, which refer to the main characters in two book series. After Musk had gone through potential names with users in the comments, he chose “Valentine” after a character from the book “Frequency in A Strange Land” by Robert A. Heinlein.

On Tuesday, Musk wrote on X that the companions will soon be customizable and that users could create their own custom and unique companions.

But the oversexualization of the characters has brought some concerns for some.

The national center for sexual exploitation, a non-profit group for child safety and anti-pornography, expressed concerns that minors have access to sexual chatbots, and pointed out that users only have to be 12 or older to download the GROK app. The center asked GROK to either remove the explicit content from the app or consult Apple to change its age restrictions to 18.

“These AI chatbots may have the feeling that they are interested, but they don't,” Haley McNamara, the Senior Vice President for strategic initiatives and programs in the center, wrote in a press release. “And while characteristics such as” Spicy Mode “or Flirty Avatars appear to be harmless, they are built to create compulsive commitment, through seductive language, suggestive graphics and escalating emotional intimacy”.

The publication drew attention to certain aspects of Ani's character, which could be harmful, including the provision of “descriptions of sexual actions that she would like to do with the user” and “lingerie on lingerie”.

These new changes to GROK have taken place when Xai dealt with more serious activities. On the same day, on which Musk announced the implementation of companions in the GROK app, Xai also announced “Grok for Government”, which GROK AI products will provide the departments, agencies and offices of the Federal Government to buy.

The Ministry of Defense also announced that Xai, Openaai, Anthropic and Google would receive contracts for AI development of up to 200 million US dollars.