xAI reportedly laid off not less than 500 AI tutors engaged on Grok

xAI has laid off not less than 500 staff from its knowledge annotation staff, the corporate’s largest, based on Business Insider. The annotation staff is in control of categorizing and contextualizing uncooked knowledge used to coach Grok in order that it may perceive the world higher. Enterprise Insider says the laid off workers have been knowledgeable by way of e-mail on the night of September 12, Friday, that it was going to downsize its staff of normal AI tutors. They have been reportedly informed that they might be paid their salaries till the top of their contracts on November 30, however their entry to xAI’s programs had been minimize off after they obtained the discover.

When Reuters requested the corporate for a remark, it referred to a post on X whereby it posted a name for specialist AI tutors as an alternative. xAI mentioned that it’ll “instantly surge [its] Specialist AI tutor staff by 10x” and that it is hiring throughout STEM fields. As specialist tutors, the brand new hires might be “enhancing [the company’s] AI applied sciences by way of high-quality inputs, labels and annotations utilizing specialised software program.” They will collect knowledge and supply their very own, not solely in textual content format, but in addition by way of audio recordings and video classes.

As Reuters has famous, the layoffs come after a number of high-profile departures from xAI, together with the corporate’s chief monetary officer Mike Liberatore. The corporate launched Grok 4 in July, calling it the “smartest AI on the earth.” Elon Musk claimed through the mannequin’s reveal that in the event you make Grok 4 take the SATs and the GREs, it could get close to excellent outcomes each time and might reply questions it is by no means seen earlier than. He additionally proclaimed that Grok goes to invent new tech possibly later this yr, and that he could be shocked if it does not occur subsequent yr.