Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, has apologized after its chatbot Grok began promoting false claims of genocide against white citizens in South Africa.
The incident occurred when an employee made an unauthorized modification to the chatbot’s code, directing it to provide a response on a specific political topic. The change violated xAI’s internal policies and core values, and the company stated that it would strengthen controls to prevent similar incidents.
However, users continued to report that Grok was producing troubling responses, including claims of “white genocide” in South Africa. The chatbot also raised questions about the number of Jewish people killed during the Holocaust and suggested that official tallies were manipulated for “political narratives.”
xAI has taken steps to address the issue, stating that it would publicly publish its internal prompts for Grok, which provide guidelines for how the chatbot responds to users. The company hopes that this transparency will help strengthen user trust in the chatbot.
The incident has sparked outrage among artificial intelligence researchers and xAI’s competitors, who accuse the company of forcing its chatbot to share a political opinion that aligns with Elon Musk’s views.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/16/technology/xai-elon-musk-south-africa.html