Elon Musk's artificial intelligence venture, xAI, has landed in hot water after launching a sexualised chatbot named Ani, which is also accessible to users as young as 12. Packaged inside the Grok app,

One of the new “companions,” or AI characters for users to interact with, is a sexualized blonde anime bot called “Ani."

On Wednesday, Elon Musk discussed a new male AI “companion” that his company xAI is developing, which will run on the company’s unhinged chatbot software Grok. And while it’s not yet clear when this new robot buddy will be released, it sounds an awful lot like Musk is trying to make a romanticized version of himself.

X CEO Elon Musk is testing animated “companions” for its xAI product. The companions include a flirty and sexually suggestive anime girl, named Ani, and a red panda named, Bad Rudy, who promotes chaos and boat thefts (X) X CEO Elon Musk is testing animated “companions” for its xAI product.

This marks a shift in the AI wars. Instead of just competing on intelligence or reasoning, Musk wants Grok to feel more personal, more addictive, and more human, or at least more fun. But the reactions online show that people are split. SuperGrok now has two new companions for you, say hello to Ani and Rudy! pic.twitter.com/SRrV6T0MGT