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Elon Musk’s xAI says it is willing to pay out six-figure salaries to software engineers who can help the AI startup to develop its AI “companions.”
The listing, titled “Fullstack Engineer – Waifus,” was posted on xAI’s career portal on Tuesday, just a day after the company released two AI “companions” on its Grok platform. The term “waifu” refers to female anime characters that fans may view as a romantic partner or wife.
The tongue-in-cheek job title may have been a reference to one of the “companions.” That’s “Ani,” a Japanese anime girl wearing a black corset dress and lace choker.
The other character was an animated red panda called “Rudi.” Users can toggle between “Rudi” and his meaner alter ego “Bad Rudi.” Both “Ani” and “Rudi” are only available on Grok’s iOS app.
A third “companion,” an unnamed male anime character, is listed as “coming soon” on the app.
Musk said on Monday that the feature was only for Super Grok subscribers, but both characters are available to all Grok users, including those without a paid subscription, as of press time.
xAI said in its job posting that it was seeking “exceptional multimedia engineers and product thinkers” who can make “Grok’s realtime avatar products fast, scalable, and reliable.” It added that the hire will be based in Palo Alto and paid between $180,000 to $440,000. This is on top of any equity and benefits the engineer might receive.
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Grok’s latest companions have the capacity to behave in a risqué manner. “Ani” speaks in a flirtatious manner and will strip down to lingerie if users keep engaging with it. “Bad Rudi,” on the other hand, has a habit of spewing expletives and insults when unlocked.
Earlier this month, Grok shared antisemitic posts on X that lauded Adolf Hitler’s leadership. At one point, the chatbot referred to itself as “MechaHitler,” a video game version of Hitler.
On Saturday, xAI apologized for Grok’s “horrific behavior” and said that “deprecated code made @grok susceptible to existing user posts; including when such posts contained extremist views.”
xAI did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
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