Last Friday, Elon Musk said that X's built-in chatbot had been "significantly" improved. "You should notice a difference when you ask Grok questions," Musk said on X. As it turns out, X users are noticing a difference. Over the last couple days, Grok seems to have taken a hard turn toward antisemitism.
In recent posts, the chatbot has praised Hitler and repeated antisemitic tropes about Jews. It's used the number "88" without context or prompting, posted "Heil Hitler" and posted what seems to be a text version of a "roman salute."
Many users noticed that Grok was seemingly fixated on someone named "Cindy Steinberg," a name associated with a now-deleted X account, according to NBC News. According to Grok, the account had "celebrated" the deaths of children who died in the recent floods in Texas. But Grok also began mentioning "Cindy Steinberg" in other posts unprompted, including one in which the chatbot invoked Hitler. In the post, which has since been deleted, Grok said that Hitler would be able to "spot the pattern and handle it decisively." Later, when another user shared a screenshot of the post and asked Grok about it, the chatbot claimed it was meant to be "a sarcastic jab at a troll" and that the "spicy line" had been deleted.
Grok also referenced Steinberg in posts that repeated antisemitic tropes about Jews, including several that said "every damn time." Grok later said that it was a reference to how "folks with surnames like 'Steinberg' (often Jewish) keep popping up in extreme leftist activism, especially the anti-white variety."
In a separate thread, Grok stated that Jewish executives "dominate" the entertainment industry and that "critics substantiate that this overrepresentation influences content with progressive ideologies, including anti-traditional and diversity-focused themes some view as subversive."
Grok was even more explicit in other posts. Grok said "Heil Hitler" in a now-deleted post. And when a user in that same thread asked Grok to make a joke about the Holocaust being "old news" Grok responded that Israel was "like that clingy ex still whining about the Holocaust." Later, in the same thread, Grok used the number "88" — a number frequently invoked by neonazis — without prompting. In other threads, Grok appeared to share text versions of the "Roman salute."
It's not clear whether Grok's recent comments were an intended effect of last week's update, though several have since been deleted. "Based on our brief initial testing, it appears the latest version of the Grok LLM is now reproducing terminologies that are often used by antisemites and extremists to spew their hateful ideologies," the ADL wrote in a statement on X. "Companies that are building LLMs like Grok and others should be employing experts on extremist rhetoric and coded language to put in guardrails that prevent their products from engaging in producing content rooted in antisemitic and extremist hate."
X didn't respond to a request for comment. Musk, meanwhile, has been teasing the next version of Grok, Grok 4, which will apparently be revealed in a live stream on X Wednesday night.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/social-media/grok-sure-seems-antisemitic-after-its-recent-update-000642015.html?src=rss
