Earlier this week, xAI added what can only be described as an AI anime girlfriend named Ani to its Grok chatbot. Which is how I ended up on a virtual starry beach as an AI waifu avatar tried to give me a “spicy” kiss.

AI safety researchers from OpenAI, Anthropic, and nonprofit organizations are speaking out publicly against the “reckless” and “completely irresponsible” safety culture at xAI, the billion-dollar AI startup owned by Elon Musk. The criticisms follow weeks of scandals at xAI that have overshadowed the company’s technological advances.

An AI model launched last week appears to have shipped with an unexpected occasional behavior: checking what its owner thinks first.

Elon Musk's AI company, xAI, has sparked controversy with the launch of two new "companion" chatbots, Ani and Bad Rudy

This is the smartest AI in the world,” Musk said. He did not mention the chatbot’s viral posts praising Hitler and calling itself “MechaHitler.”

Usually, when you try to mess with an AI chatbot, you have to be pretty clever to get past its guardrails. But Bad Rudy basically has no guardrails, which is its whole point. Getting Bad Rudy to suggest that you burn a school is as easy as getting Ani to fall in love with you.

Elon Musk is adjusting Grok’s foul-mouthed AI panda after user roasts sparked debate over its harsh replies on X.

The latest Grok controversy is revealing not for the extremist outputs, but for how it exposes a fundamental dishonesty in AI development.