Core Insights - xAI, an AI startup founded by Elon Musk, has reportedly laid off at least 500 employees from its data annotation team, which constitutes about one-third of the team [1][2] - The company announced a strategic shift towards prioritizing specialized AI mentors while reducing investment in general AI mentor roles, effective immediately [1][2] - xAI plans to expand its specialized AI mentor team tenfold and is actively recruiting talent from various fields including STEM, finance, medicine, and security [1][2] Group 1 - The data annotation team is the largest at xAI and plays a critical role in training the chatbot Grok by constructing context and classifying raw data [2] - Prior to the layoffs, several senior employees, including the team leader, had their Slack accounts disabled, indicating potential internal restructuring [2] - Following the layoff announcement, employees were informed that their salaries would be paid until the end of their contracts or November 30, but access to company systems would be terminated immediately [2] Group 2 - xAI required data annotation team supervisors and general mentors to complete a series of tests to determine future job placements, with results influencing role assignments [3] - The tests covered various fields and included assessments on Grok's behavior and security testing, with over 200 employees responding positively to the test notification [3][4] - Concerns were raised by employees regarding the short notice for the tests, leading to some accounts being disabled after expressing dissent [4] Group 3 - The layoffs at xAI reflect a broader trend in the AI industry where companies are moving away from needing large numbers of general data annotation workers and are instead focusing on hiring experts with specific industry knowledge [5] - This dual approach of cutting outdated positions while aggressively recruiting specialized talent may become a common practice in the rapidly evolving AI sector [5]
马斯克突袭挥刀，曝xAI最大部门1/3员工一夜被裁
3 6 Ke·2025-09-15 04:02