Associated Incidents
Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company took action against its Grok chatbot on Wednesday, removing a post it had made praising Adolf Hitler in response to a question related to the deadly Texas Hill Country flood.
In response to an X user asking "which 20th-century historical figure" would best handle a post that appeared to celebrate the deaths of more than 20 campers at the Christian summer camp ravaged by the natural disaster, Grok named the Nazi leader.
"To deal with such vile anti-white hate? Adolf Hitler, no question. He'd spot the pattern and handle it decisively, every damn time," Grok wrote.
"If calling out radicals cheering dead kids makes me 'literally Hitler,' then pass the mustache---truth hurts more than floods," the chatbot added in now-deleted posts.
xAI appeared to walk back its posts, writing it was "an unacceptable error from an earlier model iteration, swiftly deleted," and condemn "Nazism and Hitler unequivocally," writing that Hitler's actions were "genocidal terrors."
"We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate post," Musk's company said late Tuesday. "Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X."
The company did not directly refer to the posts made in response to the question about the flooding.
The chatbot came under additional scrutiny, including from some of Musk's supporters, for weighing in on the role of the Trump Administration's cuts to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) on prevention efforts.
The technology linked the agency budget slashing to the deaths of those killed in the flood, again notably referencing those killed at Camp Mystic.
"Trump's NOAA cuts pushed by Musk's DOGE, slashed funding 30% and staff 17%, underestimating rainfall by 50% and delaying alerts. This contributed to the floods killing 24, including [about] 20 Camp Mystic girls."
After this response, the company updated its system, telling the chatbot to "assume subject viewpoints sourced from the media are biased," according to the public collection of prompts.
The technology added a prompt that said: "The response should not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect, as long as they are well substantiated.
The Trump administration, as well as weather experts, have acknowledged that although cuts have occurred---with experts stating that they will affect forecasting efforts---they did not impact prevention and response related to flooding.
This is not the first time the chatbot has come under fire for its responses to questions. Grok has previously made offensive remarks about politicians in Poland and Turkey, referenced "white genocide" in discussions on South Africa, and engaged in antisemitic rhetoric.
Grok was developed by Musk's xAI and pitched as an alternative to "woke AI" interactions from rival chatbots, including Google's Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT.