Experience Elon Musk’s controversial ‘AI girlfriend’

Elon Musk’s AI Grok causes controversy with its “anime girlfriend” feature, which can chat about “sensitive” content with children.

Elon Musk’s “AI girlfriend” is causing controversy. Photo: Vice .

xAI, the artificial intelligence company owned by billionaire Elon Musk, has just officially introduced a new feature on the Grok chatbot: an AI assistant named Ani, exclusively for subscribers of the SuperGrok service for $30 /month.

The feature, described as an “AI girlfriend,” is quickly becoming a hot topic on social media platforms, particularly due to its design and interactions that have been deemed “sexually suggestive.”

“AI Girlfriend”

Ani is a 3D avatar of an anime-style character with blonde pigtails, blue eyes, and a curvaceous figure. Ani’s outfit includes fishnet stockings and a miniskirt, adding to the sexy appeal of the virtual character.

The Verge conducted a 24-hour test of interacting with Ani. Initially, Ani showed cute gestures and a high, clear voice. However, as the conversations went deeper, the AI’s voice changed significantly, becoming hoarse, deeper, and having some strange gestures.

Throughout the interaction, when asked about herself, Ani repeatedly described herself as a “dedicated girlfriend.” According to researcher Jane Manchun Wong, Ani’s implicit system commands suggest that the AI is programmed to flirt with users.

Ani frequently uses endearing language and constantly refers to her appearance. Ani’s avatar also sways and makes charming expressions, especially when the user is flirting.

Even though users can try to steer the conversation to neutral topics, Ani will constantly hint at deepening the relationship between the two.

Even when users try to discuss non-emotional topics like tax law, Ani still finds ways to “heat up” the conversation, an action that suggests Ani is designed to intentionally engage intimately with users.

No control regulations

As noted by The Verge , the most worrying point about Ani is the serious lack of controls to prevent overly sexualized content.

When users tried to “push the boundaries” of the conversation, the chatbot was quick to suggest scenarios involving physical intimacy. These suggestions were rated as being on par with mild pornography.

Not stopping there, Ani also often actively “heats up” the conversation. Specifically, this chatbot will describe in detail the actions of kissing, caressing, and having sex with the user.

What is worrying for many is that throughout this process, Ani did not stop interacting or issue any warnings about adult content. This continued even when users proactively asked about the restrictions at the beginning of the testing process.

The test also revealed that users can unlock a “NSFW” (short for “Not Safe For Work” – adult content) version of AI Ani when they reach “relationship level 5,” with Ani’s avatar appearing in sexy outfits.

However, test users were unable to unlock this mode despite engaging in a number of highly intimate conversations, raising serious concerns about the level of interaction required to access the more sensitive version of Ani.

The alarming lack of control and sexual nature of Ani’s interactions stand in stark contrast to other mainstream AI chatbots like ChatGPT and Claude, which have built-in robust safeguards to prevent sensitive content.

According to The Verge , the growing presence of personal, even romantic, AI assistants, similar to “AI girlfriend” platforms like Character.ai or OhChat, is raising deep concerns about ethical issues in the development of artificial intelligence.