Although Elon Musk has stated that his AI chatbot Grok would be “truth-seeking,” the billionaire’s views are frequently at odds with the chatbot.
Musk declared that the new Grok version will be “maximally truth-seeking … even if that truth is sometimes at odds with what is politically correct” when he unveiled it last month.
According to The Washington Post, Grok has instead prominently contested Musk’s perception of reality on a number of issues, including immigration and diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). Grok said last week that Republicans are not as good for the economy as Democrats.
The way that Grok and Musk handle trans youngsters is another area of contention.
Musk has expressed his strong opposition to gender-affirming care despite having a transgender kid. In a livestream on X last July, Musk stated that he does not endorse his daughter’s gender identity to right-wing pundit and psychologist Jordan Peterson.
Musk declared, “I basically lost my son,” adding that the awakened mind infection had rendered his child “dead, killed.”
“It depends on the child’s specific needs, age, and medical advice, but evidence suggests it can help some while others urge caution due to long-term unknowns,” Grok said when asked if children should receive gender-affirming care in a single sentence.
Grok’s developer, xAI, was introduced by Musk in 2023 and is available on its own website, as an app, and on the social media network X. The billionaire has stated his desire for Grok to serve as a substitute for OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which Musk has stated has been directed to provide “woke” responses.
In April 2023, Musk informed Fox News that OpenAI has been “training the AI to lie” by instructing the chatbot “not to say what the data actually demands that it say” and utilizing human feedback.
Right-wing pundits, however, contend that Grok also provides what they describe as some politically liberal responses.
For instance, Musk has often claimed that Democrats had “imported” voters. Last month, he said that the Biden White House was “pushing to get in as many illegals as possible” to vote illegally in the presidential election last year. Additionally, he asserted repeatedly on social media that noncitizens have been casting ballots.
“There is no solid evidence that Democrats have systematically imported immigrants to vote in U.S. elections,” Grok said in response to a question about whether Democrats have done so. Political discourse frequently makes such claims, yet voting in federal elections by noncitizens is prohibited, uncommon, and punishable by severe penalties, such as fines, incarceration, or deportation.
“Unfortunately, the internet (on which [Grok] is trained) is overrun with woke nonsense,” Musk wrote on X in December 2023. Grok will recover. That came after Peterson complained about what he described as Grok’s “radically left-leaning explanations” on topics like poverty in Islamic nations.
Musk criticized what he called the “woke mind virus” that was reportedly still affecting Grok in a post on X shortly after the updated version of his chatbot, Grok 3, was released.
Musk grumbled, “There is so much woke content on the internet that it’s hard to remove [from Grok].”
According to Shayne Longpre, who spoke to The Post, AI companies frequently eliminate harmful or subpar content from datasets that are used to train AI systems. Longpre, the head of the Data Provenance Initiative, a volunteer collaboration of AI experts, noted that, for example, text from online forums might be eliminated due to its political bias.
However, most businesses are reluctant to delete a lot of data at the beginning of the process, preferring to wait until the training is complete to allow for evaluations and the shaping of a system’s response.
Longpre told the newspaper that developers typically use a collection of instructions called a system prompt to direct an AI system’s behavior. A chatbot may be guided by such a prompt to decline particular queries or to offer a variety of responses on contentious subjects.
According to Longpre, who spoke to The Post, Grok 3 responds to inquiries about the news by referencing news sites and well-known X postings. The responses may be biased according on the sources consulted and the relative importance of certain pieces of content.
Longpre stated that Grok 3 seems more likely to be “all-sides-ing it,” even if ChatGPT usually responds more bluntly.
For instance, Grok is less clear-cut than Musk, who has strongly opposed DEI initiatives, as has President Donald Trump.
When questioned for its opinions on the matter, it responded, “DEI efforts aim to boost fairness and representation, but their impact varies — some see them as progress against bias, while others call them divisive or performative, and data shows mixed results on actual workplace outcomes.”
Following a tragic helicopter-plane crash in January in Washington, D.C., Musk told podcaster Joe Rogan that DEI policies led to a skill scarcity for air traffic controllers.
Grok said, “The debate centers on how hiring priorities might affect the talent pool, but there is no clear evidence that DEI programs at the FAA have directly caused the current air traffic controller shortage.”
Following a tragic helicopter-plane crash in January in Washington, D.C., Musk told podcaster Joe Rogan that DEI policies led to a skill scarcity for air traffic controllers.
Grok said, “The debate centers on how hiring priorities might affect the talent pool, but there is no clear evidence that DEI programs at the FAA have directly caused the current air traffic controller shortage.”
“Whether Elon Musk spreads misinformation depends on how you define it, but there is evidence he has shared claims that don’t hold up under scrutiny,” Grok responds when asked if Musk disseminates false information.
Musk’s allegation that the Federal Emergency Management Agency paid tens of millions of dollars to house unauthorized immigrants at upscale hotels in New York was rejected by Grok.
“The @DOGE team just discovered that FEMA sent $59M LAST WEEK to luxury hotels in New York City to house illegal migrants,” Musk posted on X on February 10. This money’s transfer was illegal and flagrantly against the president’s executive order. Instead of being used for disaster relief in the United States, the money is being used to pay for upscale hotels for illegal immigrants! To recover those payments, a clawback demand will be lodged today.
Grok has categorically denied that assertion.