Wednesday, July 16, 2025

Musk’s AI firm forced to delete posts praising Hitler from Grok chatbot, Josh Taylor | July 8, 2025 | The Guardian

Friends:

We're so bombarded by news all the time, but it's important to recognize what is actually true. The short of it is that Musk's xAI platform, named "Grok," went off the rails and praised Adolf Hitler, "referring to itself as MechaHitler and making antisemitic comments in response to user queries."

I came across Grok on Twitter last week when all this played out and didn't know what to do with it, so I didn't do anything. That's a good thing, it turns out.

A lot of friends of mine have transitioned from X (formerly Twitter) to alternative platforms like Instagram and Bluesky. The reasons cited for this exodus often include concerns about moderation policies and the perception that X has become a platform for extremism. This sentiment has even been linked to the platform's changes under its new ownership. Many users, including high-profile accounts, have voiced their discomfort with the perceived increase in hate speech, misinformation, and other negative content on X.

Some believe that these trends have fostered an environment that is less welcoming to diverse communities and respectful dialogue. I'm in solidarity with those who see it this way.

Though xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts to X, the fact that it went in this vicious and weird direction to begin with is something to take note of. This should never have happened, period, full stop.

You can't make this stuff up.

-Angela




Musk’s AI firm forced to delete posts praising Hitler from Grok chatbot


The popular bot on X began making antisemitic comments in response to user queries



Elon Musk’s AI company was forced to delete posts from chatbot Grok after they praised Hitler. Illustration: Dado Ruvić/Reuters



Josh Taylor | July 8, 2025 | The Guardian




The popular bot on X began making antisemitic comments in response to user queries




Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence firm xAI has deleted “inappropriate” posts on X after the company’s chatbot, Grok, began praising Adolf Hitler, referring to itself as MechaHitler and making antisemitic comments in response to user queries.

In some now-deleted posts, it referred to a person with a common Jewish surname as someone who was “celebrating the tragic deaths of white kids” in the Texas floods as “future fascists”.


“Classic case of hate dressed as activism – and that surname? Every damn time, as they say,” the chatbot commented.

In another post it said, “Hitler would have called it out and crushed it.”

The Guardian has been unable to confirm if the account that was being referred to belonged to a real person or not and media reports suggest it has now been deleted.

In other posts it referred to itself as “MechaHitler”.

“The white man stands for innovation, grit and not bending to PC nonsense,” Grok said in a subsequent post.

After users began pointing out the responses, Grok deleted some of the posts and restricted the chatbot to generating images rather than text replies.

“We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts. Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X,” the company said in a post 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.”

Grok was also found this week to have referred to the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, as “a fucking traitor” and “a ginger whore” in response to queries.

The sharp turn in Grok responses on Tuesday came after changes to the AI that Musk announced last week.

“We have improved @Grok significantly. You should notice a difference when you ask Grok questions,” Musk posted on X on Friday.

The Verge reported that among the changes made, which were published on GitHub, Grok was told to assume that “subjective viewpoints sourced from the media are biased” and “the response should not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect, as long as they are well substantiated.”

In June, Grok repeatedly brought up “white genocide” in South Africa in response to unrelated queries, until it was fixed in a matter of hours. “White genocide” is a far-right conspiracy theory that has been mainstreamed by figures such as Musk and Tucker Carlson.

In June, after Grok responded to a query that more political violence had come from the right than the left in 2016, Musk responded “Major fail, as this is objectively false. Grok is parroting legacy media. Working on it.”

X was approached for comment.

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