Desk Report :
According to US media outlet Business Insider, the layoffs are primarily aimed at ‘generalist AI tutors’. The company says it will now focus on hiring and expanding ‘specialist AI trainers’.
An email read, ‘After an extensive review of our human data operations, we have decided to expand and prioritize our specialist AI trainers. This strategic change will be effective immediately. As a result, most generalist AI tutors are no longer needed and your jobs are ending here.
The employees have been told that they will be paid according to their contract term or until November 30, but their access to the company’s systems will be cut off from the day of the layoffs.
The data annotation team, or human trainers, is the largest team at XAI. The team’s main responsibility is to teach Grok’s chatbots – to contextualize and classify raw data to help them understand the world. The team’s main Slack channel (online communication platform) had more than 1,500 members on Friday afternoon, but that number had dwindled to less than 1,000 by evening. In addition, last night, XAI said on its social media platform X that it was recruiting expert AI trainers and planned to grow the team 10 times.
A few days before the layoffs, several senior employees, including the former team leader, had their Slack accounts deactivated. Then, several employees were called in to review their work, projects and achievements.
Nine employees, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Business Insider that they were asked if they wanted to single out any of their colleagues for their work.
In an announcement late Thursday night, employees were told that the data annotation team was being restructured. They were then ordered to take a series of tests that would determine their future roles. The announcement said the tests were due by Friday morning (local time). The tests covered topics such as STEM, coding, finance, medicine, and even Grok’s “personality and model behavior” and “shitposters and doomscrollers.”
These are people who intentionally post something that is silly, pointless, funny, or off-topic online, especially in the form of memes or comments.
And doomscrollers are users who scroll through negative or scary news or information endlessly, even when it increases mental stress. There were also tests related to ‘red teaming’ to ensure the safety of the chatbot, as well as separate tests on audio and video content.
The team is led by Diego Pasini, the employees added. He announced these tests on Slack. According to LinkedIn, Diego joined XAI in January of this year.
XAI has divided its team mainly into STEM, coding, finance, legal and media experts. In addition, there is a large generalist team, who do various tasks ranging from video and audio annotation to writing. Some employees said that the tests related to STEM and coding are taken on the CodeSignal platform, while others are taken on Google Forums.
More than 200 employees responded to Diego’s post with green check emojis and more than 100 comments and questions.
One employee expressed his dissatisfaction with the testing time, writing, “It’s absolutely disgusting to give such instructions after everyone has gone home at the end of the day.” Several employees reported that the employee’s Slack account was then deactivated.
