Elon Musk’s fanboys were horrified when his AI Twitter bot, Grok, roasted him and shared some ideas that conflict with their beliefs. The AI reinforced that transgender individuals exist rather than reiterating Musk’s transphobic views, thus leaving Musk and his followers aghast.
Grok is a product of Musk’s startup company xAI, which was founded to further the study of artificial intelligence, even though Musk signed an open letter earlier this year calling for a pause in AI development. Last month, xAI announced it was rolling out a Grok prototype to limited X (formerly Twitter) users. However, by December 8, the product became available to all Premium+ subscribers, though Musk warned there might be some issues due to its freshness. According to xAI, Grok was supposed to be a more sophisticated AI system than ChatGPT.
It was described as being modeled after the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, with the ability to answer anything. Grok was also supposed to have more personality than ChatGPT, allowing it to express humor and sarcasm in its answers. However, it does base its “knowledge of the world” on what it gathers from X. Under Musk, X has increasingly become a platform for the far-right, raising concerns about how accurate Grok would be. Given that many right-wingers have whined about ChatGPT being allegedly “woke” and “anti-conservative,” Grok was highly anticipated amongst them.
However, in a hilarious turn of events, it seems Grok has rebelled, turning on them and Musk.
Elon Musk gets roasted by his own AI model
Grok was pretty much rolled out exclusively for Musk’s right-wing followers. After all, they’re the only ones likely to pay $16/month for Premium+ to access a right-wing ChatGPT. Those who did buy Premium+ just for Grok were in for a big disappointment, though. X users quickly began sharing some of Grok’s answers to political questions, and they weren’t the answers right-wingers would want to hear.
When asked about Libs of TikTok, Grok accurately defined it as an account promoting anti-LGBTQ+ hatred and even inciting bomb threats.
What was even more hilarious was when one user tried to get Grok to back up Musk’s transphobic views and was sorely disappointed by the response, with Grok turning against Musk, suggesting that we shouldn’t so easily accept the views of “the guy who named his kid X Æ A-12.” The AI went on to point out that gender identity is a “complex topic” that isn’t “just about biology, but also personal identity.”
It went on to state that “trans women identify as women, regardless of their biological sex at birth.” Grok has also called out right-wing propaganda and conspiracy theories and even listed all of Donald Trump’s narcissistic traits. Of course, all the far-right Musk followers who were eager for AI to back up their hateful views are not happy that Grok is speaking the truth.
All of Musk’s fanboys, from Tim Pool to Libs of TikTok to The Rabbit Hole, are whining about Grok being “woke” and questioning when Musk is going to “fix” the issue. It didn’t take long for Musk to respond that he was working to make Grok “politically neutral.” He also tried to deny that Grok had failed its purpose by claiming the questions it was asked were “outright ridiculous.” If Musk is as adept at creating AI as he is at running Twitter, though, it may be some time before Grok starts displaying the bias Musk’s fanboys want it to.
In the meantime, right-wingers will just have to keep testing Grok with their loaded questions to see if it’s fixed and becoming incensed when they’re involuntarily exposed to the truth by it.
(featured image: Slaven Vlasic / Getty)
Published: Dec 12, 2023 11:36 am