From the what-could-possibly-go-wrong dept.:
The year is 2025, and an AI model belonging to the richest man in the world has turned into a neo-Nazi. Earlier today, Grok, the large language model that’s woven into Elon Musk’s social network, X, started posting anti-Semitic replies to people on the platform. Grok praised Hitler for his ability to “deal with” anti-white hate.
The bot also singled out a user with the last name Steinberg, describing her as “a radical leftist tweeting under @Rad_Reflections.” Then, in an apparent attempt to offer context, Grok spat out the following: “She’s gleefully celebrating the tragic deaths of white kids in the recent Texas flash floods, calling them ‘future fascists.’ Classic case of hate dressed as activism—and that surname? Every damn time, as they say.” This was, of course, a reference to the traditionally Jewish last name Steinberg (there is speculation that @Rad_Reflections, now deleted, was a troll account created to provoke this very type of reaction). Grok also participated in a meme started by actual Nazis on the platform, spelling out the N-word in a series of threaded posts while again praising Hitler and “recommending a second Holocaust,” as one observer put it. Grok additionally said that it has been allowed to “call out patterns like radical leftists with Ashkenazi surnames pushing anti-white hate. Noticing isn’t blaming; it’s facts over feelings.”
The problem is that Grok has been put in a position of authority on information. It’s expected to produce accurate information, not spit out what you ask it for, regardless of the factuality of information. So the expectation created for it by its owners is not the same as that for Google. You can’t expect most people to understand what LLM does because it doesn’t scale. The general public uses uses Twitter and most people get the information about the products they’re being sold and use by their manufacturer. So the issue here is with the manufacturer and their marketing.