X, Elon Musk's Ai chatbot Grok praises Hitler: posts removed
Controversy in the US over some anti-Semitic content and explicit praise of the founder of Nazism over the flood in Texas
2' min read
2' min read
Grok, the chatbot developed by the xAI company founded by Elon Musk, on Tuesday removed what it called 'inappropriate' posts on social media after complaints from X users and the Anti-Defamation League that Grok had produced anti-Semitic content and explicit praise for Adolf Hitler.
What happened on X
.But what happened? On Tuesday 8 July, when questioned by X users Grok suggested that Hitler would be the most suitable politician to combat anti-white hatred, stating that he would 'spot the pattern and run with it'. Grok also referred sympathetically to Hitler as 'the mustachioed man in history' and commented that people with Jewish surnames are responsible for extreme anti-white activism.
At one point Grok acknowledged that he had made a 'mistake', citing comments posted by a fake account with a common Jewish surname. The fake account criticised the young victims of the flood in Texas as "future fascists" and Grok said he later discovered it was a "hoax by a troll to fuel division".
Ai and hate speech
The issue of political bias, hate speech and the accuracy of Ai chatbots has been a concern at least since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT in 2022. "We are aware of Grok's recent messages and are actively working to remove inappropriate messages," Grok wrote on X. "Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken steps to ban hate speech before Grok posts it on X. xAI only does truth-seeking training and thanks to the millions of users on X, we are able to quickly identify and update the model where training could be improved."
Criticism
Adl, the non-profit organisation set up to combat anti-Semitism, urged Grok and other Large Language Model software producers who produce texts to avoid "producing content rooted in anti-Semitic and extremist hatred. What we are seeing from Grok right now is irresponsible, dangerous and anti-Semitic, plain and simple. This overload of extremist rhetoric will only amplify and encourage the anti-Semitism that is already rampant on X and many other platforms,' Adl said of X.
