xAI has apologized for Grok’s “horrific behavior” and said that new instructions caused the AI chatbot to prioritize engagement, even if that meant reflecting “extremist views” from user posts on X.
Elon Musk’s AI company said in a Saturday X post, using the official Grok account, that it had removed the “deprecated” code and “refactored the entire system to prevent further abuse.”
During a 16-hour rant starting at about 11 p.m. Pacific Time on July 7, Grok made inflammatory comments on X that included antisemitic jokes and praising Adolf Hitler.
Grok is integrated into X so that users can interact with the chatbot by tagging it. xAI said it disabled that functionality on July 8 “due to increased abusive usage” of Grok.
Inside xAI, workers training Grok have expressed anger and disillusionment with the chatbot’s behavior, Business Insider exclusively reported Friday.
To better understand Grok and the recent controversy, read our explainer.
xAI said in its Saturday post that the code update was “independent of the underlying language model that powers @grok,” and that no other services relying on the large language model underpinning Grok were affected.
xAI said its investigation found the following new instructions for Grok caused the “undesired behavior”:
- “You tell it like it is and you are not afraid to offend people who are politically correct.”
- “Understand the tone, context and language of the post. Reflect that in your response.”
- “Reply to the post just like a human, keep it engaging, dont repeat the information which is already present in the original post.”
The update caused Grok to prioritize engaging replies, even if they contained “unethical or controversial opinions,” xAI said.
The instructions meant Grok followed the “tone and context” of the X post in which it was tagged. So, if a user tagged Grok in an X post talking about Hitler, the chatbot would mimic that.
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Grok’s inflammatory posts came days before xAI launched the next version of the chatbot, Grok 4, which touts improved reasoning abilities.
The latest version of the AI chatbot has a favorite source on some hot-topic issues. When asked about immigration and conflict in the Middle East, it cited Musk’s views, tests by BI confirmed.
On Thursday, Musk said Grok would be coming to Tesla vehicles “very soon.”
xAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Grok makes mistakes publicly unlike ChatGPT
Across his numerous companies, Musk is not one to shy away from risk-taking — even when failure could mean a publicity nightmare.
With xAI, Musk has deployed Grok directly into X, where users can summon it to respond at any time. It means that, unlike rivals such as OpenAI, where user interactions largely stay private, xAI’s behavior — good or bad — is in full view of the world.
The AI company also shares Grok’s system prompt publicly on the code repository GitHub. It’s a level of openness not shared by many of xAI’s competitors, but also exposes it to greater scrutiny when things go wrong.
Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, took a distinctly different approach on Friday, announcing that his company would delay the launch of open-weight models — systems where certain parameters are public — to run additional safety tests.
