xAI workers balked over training request to help “give Grok a face,” docs show

Slack messages: Some xAI employees refused to join invasive Grok training.

Dozens of xAI employees expressed concerns—and many objected—when asked to record videos of their facial expressions to help "give Grok a face," Business Insider reported.

BI reviewed internal documents and Slack messages, finding that the so-called project "Skippy" was designed to help Grok learn what a face is and "interpret human emotions."

It's unclear from these documents if workers' facial data helped train controversial avatars that xAI released last week, including Ani—an anime companion that flirts and strips—and Rudi—a red panda with a "Bad" mode that encourages violence. But a recording of an xAI introductory meeting on "Skippy" showed a lead engineer confirming the company "might eventually use" the employees' facial data to build out "avatars of people," BI reported.

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Win for chemical industry as EPA shutters scientific research office

Companies feared rules and lawsuits based on Office of Research and Development assessments.

Soon after President Donald Trump took office in January, a wide array of petrochemical, mining, and farm industry coalitions ramped up what has been a long campaign to limit use of the Environmental Protection Agency’s assessments of the health risks of chemicals.

That effort scored a significant victory Friday when EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced his decision to dismantle the agency’s Office of Research and Development (ORD).

The industry lobbyists didn’t ask for hundreds of ORD staff members to be laid off or reassigned. But the elimination of the agency’s scientific research arm goes a long way toward achieving the goal they sought.

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