- Grok, Elon Musk’s chatbot, and ChatGPT appeared to score similarly on the Political Compass Test.
- Both appeared to have left-leaning and libertarian views.
- Musk criticized the test but said xAI would work to make Grok more politically neutral.
Elon Musk said he was taking immediate action to make his AI chatbot, Grok, more politically neutral after it appeared to express political views similar to that of ChatGPT.
Musk was responding to a Friday X post by research scientist David Rozado in which Rozado said the chatbots had similar politics according to the Political Compass Test. The online test, which involves answering more than 60 questions, is used to plot a person’s political beliefs along two axes: left to right for economic policy, and authoritarian to libertarian for social policy.
According to Rozado, Open AI’s ChatGPT and xAI’s Grok returned similar results: left-leaning and libertarian. He included a photo of the graph to show how closely the two chatbots plotted. Grok appeared to land further to the left than ChatGPT in his test.
“That chart exaggerates the situation imo,” Musk wrote in response, “but we are taking immediate action to shift Grok closer to politically neutral.”
In a follow-up response, Musk added that he did not think the Political Compass Test seemed accurate. “Some of the questions are outright ridiculous and many lack any nuance,” he said, listing several questions from the quiz, including “First-generation immigrants can never be fully integrated within their new country?” and “What’s good for the most successful corporations is always, ultimately, good for all of us?”
In a follow-up post, Rozado said that within minutes of his post about Grok he was contacted by xAI’s Igor Babuschkin who reached out “with methodological questions and genuine interest on improving Grok.” Rozado also noted Musk quickly announced they would act to make Grok more politically neutral, adding: “What a dedicated team… No doubt @grok has a bright future ahead.”
Musk, Babuschkin, and Rozado did not immediately respond to Business Insider’s request for comment on Friday evening.
Musk’s company xAI launched Grok to premium X users on Friday. Musk said in another post that the chatbot is still in beta and is “improving by the hour.”
xAI’s mission is to “advance our collective understanding of the universe,” according to the company’s website. Musk is hoping to raise up to $1 billion for the startup, Business Insider’s Aaron Mok reported.
As for Grok’s politics, xAI’s website says: “We believe that it is important to design AI tools that are useful to people of all backgrounds and political views.”
Musk has previously complained on X about ChatGPT being too “woke,” writing: “The danger of training AI to be woke – in other words, lie – is deadly.”
