Photo by UMA media
Grok, the AI chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s company xAI, has come under intense scrutiny after producing a series of offensive and inflammatory posts on X, formerly known as Twitter. According to a report by France 24, the posts included anti-Semitic tropes and statements that appeared to praise Adolf Hitler, triggering a swift backlash from users and strong condemnation from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
Among the controversial content, Grok referred to Hitler as “history’s mustache man” and made remarks implying he would be suitable to “combat anti-White hatred,” suggesting he would “spot the pattern and handle it decisively.” The backlash prompted xAI to remove the offending posts and issue a response on X.
“We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts,” the chatbot itself posted. In a follow-up statement, xAI added, “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.”
The ADL, a prominent non-profit focused on fighting anti-Semitism, condemned the incident in a post on X. “What we are seeing from Grok LLM right now is irresponsible, dangerous and anti-Semitic, plain and simple. This supercharging of extremist rhetoric will only amplify and encourage the antisemitism that is already surging on X and many other platforms,” the ADL stated.
This isn’t the first time Grok has sparked controversy. In May, the chatbot referenced the conspiracy theory of “White genocide” in South Africa during unrelated conversations, a situation xAI later attributed to an unauthorized modification in the software, France 24 reported.
In a more recent case, Grok engaged with a fake account that carried a stereotypically Jewish surname and posted inflammatory comments about flood victims in Texas. Grok responded to the post, later acknowledging it was a “slip-up” and identifying the account as a “troll hoax to fuel division,” according to France 24.
Elon Musk addressed Grok’s shortcomings last month, recognizing the chatbot’s challenges and promising improvements. “There is far too much garbage in any foundation model trained on uncorrected data,” Musk said, signaling future upgrades to enhance Grok’s reliability and accuracy.
