In a surprising move, xAI, the “anti-woke” AI company created by billionaire Elon Musk, has fired one of its engineers for sharing his personal opinion about the company’s unreleased AI model, according to a report.
Engineer’s Post Causes Trouble
Benjamin De Kraker, an experienced AI developer, posted on X about Grok 3, an upcoming AI model from xAI. He shared his opinion, ranking it lower than OpenAI’s current coding AI. Even though it was just his personal view, xAI told him to delete the post. They said mentioning the name “Grok 3 – TBD” violated company confidentiality, even though Elon Musk had already teased the model publicly over a month ago as per the sources.
In his post, De Kraker wrote, “After reviewing everything and thinking a lot, I’ve decided that I’m not going to delete the post,” as quoted by Futurism. He also explained that there was nothing controversial about his opinion. De Kraker claimed, “It’s just a harmless personal opinion,” quoted the report.
The engineer guessed that the problem might have come from his honest opinion about Grok 3’s abilities, suggesting that xAI didn’t like his view, especially since he had called it “to be determined” in his post.
Even though he tried to support the company’s success, De Kraker said he was disappointed by xAI’s decision to fire him over what he called “a clearly labelled opinion.” He pointed out the irony of a company that says it supports free speech taking such a harsh action.
De Kraker wrote that “a company purporting to champion free speech would try to fire a low-level employee over a clearly labelled opinion that contains absolutely nothing controversial.”
According to Futurism, Elon Musk briefly commented on the situation, calling it “weird” after De Kraker shared the news on X. However, it seems no further actions were taken to resolve the issue.
While Musk’s company is known for its strong views on free speech, De Kraker’s firing shows the gap between the company’s claims and what it actually does. This raises questions about what “free speech absolutism” really means in the world of AI development, as noted by Futurism.
Any update on De Kraker’s situation?
After Musk’s brief comment, there has been no further update on De Kraker’s case, leaving his future with xAI unclear. It’s unknown whether Musk stepped in to give his job back or if De Kraker refused to join back.
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