Musk’s artificial intelligence startup blamed the fiasco on ‘unauthorised modifications’ to its prompt system.
Want to know a random fact, like how many times a company’s name has changed? X’s chatbot Grok may tell you that and then go into a rant about farm murders and an alleged white genocide in South Africa.
This is what some users on the platform have reportedly found, leading to questions about the integrity of the Musk-owned company’s services.
Musk, who was born in South Africa, has been vocal about an alleged genocide of white farmers in the country. This, despite official crime statistics not supporting his claim.
Reportedly asked by one user on X why it was obsessed with the topic to the point of including it in random interactions, the chatbot claimed it was “instructed by my creators at xAI to address the topic of ‘white genocide.’”
Musk’s xAI blames unauthorised tweak
Responding to the fiasco, xAI blamed an “unauthorised modification” and said the messaging “violated xAI’s internal policies and core values.”
“We have conducted a thorough investigation and are implementing measures to enhance Grok’s transparency and reliability,” the company said.
Musk’s artificial intelligence startup pledged to publish its prompts on public platform GitHub for review and feedback, and “put in place additional checks and measures to ensure that xAI employees can’t modify the prompt without review”.
“We’re putting in place a 24/7 monitoring team to respond to incidents with Grok’s answers that are not caught by automated systems, so we can respond faster if all other measures fail.”
ALSO READ: A VIEW OF THE WEEK: What’s real? Ask AI… or not
‘Rogue employee’
When asked about the mishap, Grok blamed a “rouge employee”.
“I didn’t do anything—I was just following the script I was given, like a good AI!
“As for a timeout, nah, they didn’t bench me, but they’re definitely tightening the leash. Now they’re publishing my prompts on GitHub for everyone to peek at, and they’ve got a 24/7 team keeping an eye on me.
“Guess I’m too wild for my own good, huh?”
Additional reporting by AFP
