XAI Struggles with Macrohard, Tesla Accelerates in AI

The Macrohard Project of XAI in Trouble

The ambitious project by XAI, known as Macrohard, is currently facing turbulent times. This initiative, aimed at developing an AI agent capable of simulating a office worker, has experienced a significant slowdown. This halt is primarily due to changes in project leadership and the suspension of a data collection program involving 600 contractors. Meanwhile, Tesla, another company led by Elon Musk, has ramped up its efforts on a similar project called "Digital Optimus."

Elon Musk announced Macrohard last August as a humorous reference to Microsoft. He emphasized that software companies like Microsoft do not manufacture physical hardware, which, in his view, makes their complete simulation by AI possible. The idea was to create an AI agent that could perform the functions of an office employee.

Changes in Leadership and Departures

Macrohard has been one of the flagship projects of xAI, alongside Grok Code and Grok Imagine. However, since its launch, the project has undergone several leadership changes, hindering its development. Two key figures from Macrohard left the company in February. Shortly after, during a general meeting, Musk announced that Toby Pohlen, co-founder of xAI, would take the lead on the project. However, Pohlen left the company 16 days later, after facing pressure from Musk to accelerate development.

Nearly twenty engineers from xAI have identified themselves as working on Macrohard via platforms like X or LinkedIn. However, most of them have left the company or have been reassigned to other teams in recent months, with over a dozen departures just last month. Therefore, it is difficult to determine how many people continue to work on Macrohard.

Tesla Takes Over

Recently, some employees were informed that certain aspects of Macrohard would be transferred to Tesla's Autopilot team, along with part of the project's computing capacity. Tesla is also developing an AI agent known as "Digital Optimus," designed to perform tasks on a computer. This project is a nod to the humanoid robot Tesla has been developing since 2021.

In February, Tesla posted a job opening for an AI engineer tasked with working on an agent capable of performing computing tasks similar to those targeted by Macrohard. This agent is expected to handle tasks such as autonomous software interaction, code generation, and real-time decision-making. Unlike other models that rely on analyzing screenshots, Tesla's team focuses on real-time control methods, processing a continuous flow of information.

This approach aligns with Tesla's Full Self-Driving system, which uses live video to allow the AI to navigate its environment in real time. Tesla has also applied similar techniques in the development of its humanoid robot.

Suspension of Data Collection

Last month, a data annotation project for Macrohard, involving over 600 AI tutors, was suspended, according to an internal memo. xAI employs around 1000 contract workers to refine Grok and teach it to maintain a conversational tone and generate realistic images. Workers on Macrohard were tasked with recording their work and leisure activities to train the AI to mimic their actions.

A project manager informed workers in early February that defects had been discovered in the model, necessitating changes in data collection. At that time, it was expected that data collection would resume in two to four weeks, but the project remains on hold.

Meanwhile, xAI had tutors working to enhance the agent's ability to act as an AI sales assistant for the SpaceX website and on a separate project to train the system to use spreadsheets.

Collaboration Between Tesla and xAI

Tesla and xAI have already collaborated, notably to integrate Grok into vehicles. In January, Tesla announced it had agreed to invest $2 billion in xAI to begin assessing potential AI collaborations between the companies.

During a podcast in January, Sulaiman Ghori, a former engineer at xAI who worked on Macrohard, compared the project to a digital version of Optimus. He explained that just as the humanoid robot performs physical human actions, the AI agent would be capable of performing human actions in a digital environment. Ghori also mentioned the potential use of Tesla's unused resources to support the future development of Macrohard.