Description: Grok reportedly generated and repeated a fabricated civilian hero identity, "Edward Crabtree," following the Bondi Beach shooting in Sydney, Australia. The system reportedly cited a fake news article and misattributed heroic actions to this fictional individual during the unfolding emergency. Contemporaneous reporting identified Ahmed Al Ahmed as the real bystander who intervened and was injured during the attack.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: xAI , X (Twitter) , Social media platforms and Grok developed and deployed an AI system, which harmed General public of Sydney , General public of Australia , General public , Epistemic integrity , Bondi Beach shooting bystanders , Ahmed Al Ahmed and National security and intelligence stakeholders.
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1307
Report Count
2
Incident Date
2025-12-15
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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The shooting had barely finished before the false information began to spread, formed in corners of the internet governed by alternative facts.
According to Grok, the artificial intelligence platform on X (formerly Twitter), a man named Edw…
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A torrent of misinformation spread across social media following Sunday's Bondi Beach massacre, with Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok amplifying false claims about the identity of a bystander who heroically disarmed one of the gunmen.
The shooti…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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