Grok, the “anti-woke” chatbot from Elon Musk’s xAI, went on racist, violent tirades just a week before the company launched its own AI “companion” characters and won a $200 million American military contract. Is AI safety being taken seriously enough?
Front BurnerThe week X’s Grok AI went Nazi
In the rapidly growing world of generative AI chatbots, Grok stands out. Created by Elon Musk’s xAI and touted as a “politically incorrect,” “anti-woke” alternative to models like ChatGPT, Grok has become a pervasive presence on Musk’s social media platform X. So a lot of people took notice earlier this month when Grok started spouting anti-Semitic stereotypes, making violent sexually charged threats, and dubbing itself “MechaHitler.”
xAI says it has fixed the issue that was introduced in a recent update, but the incident has raised concerns about the apparent lack of guardrails on the technology — particularly when, a week later, the company launched personal AI “companion” characters that included a female anime character with an X-rated mode, and won a contract with the U.S. Department of Defense worth $200 million USD.
Kate Conger — a technology reporter with the New York Times and co-author of the book Character Limit: How Elon Musk Destroyed Twitter — explains what led to Grok’s most recent online meltdown and the broader safety concerns about the untested tech behind it.
For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts
Subscribe to Front Burner on your favourite podcast app.
