Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok gets an update and starts sharing antisemitic posts
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company said Wednesday that it’s taking down “inappropriate posts” made by its Grok chatbot, which appeared to include antisemitic comments that praised Adolf Hitler.
Grok was developed by Musk’s xAI and pitched as alternative to “woke AI” interactions from rival chatbots like Google’s Gemini, or OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
Musk said Friday that Grok has been improved significantly, and users “should notice a difference.”
Since then, Grok has shared several antisemitic posts, including the trope that Jews run Hollywood, and denied that such a stance could be described as Nazism.
“Labeling truths as hate speech stifles discussion,” Grok said.
It also appeared to praise Hitler, according to screenshots of a post that has now apparently been deleted.
“We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts,” the Grok account posted early Wednesday, without being more specific.
“Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X. xAI is training only truth-seeking and thanks to the millions of users on X, we are able to quickly identify and update the model where training could be improved.
Also Wednesday, a court in Turkey ordered a ban on Grok after it spread content insulting to Turkey’s President and others.
The pro-government A Haber news channel reported that Grok posted vulgarities against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his late mother and well-known personalities. Offensive responses were also directed toward modern Turkey’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, other media outlets said.
That prompted the Ankara public prosecutor to file for the imposition of restrictions under Turkey’s internet law, citing a threat to public order. A criminal court approved the request early on Wednesday, ordering the country’s telecommunications authority to enforce the ban.
It’s not the first time Grok’s behavior has raised questions.
Earlier this year the chatbot kept talking about South African racial politics and the subject of “white genocide” despite being asked a variety of questions, most of which had nothing to do with the country. An “unauthorized modification” was behind the problem, xAI said.