This week, Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok talked a lot about South African race issues on social media, like its creator. It made claims about white people being treated unfairly and even said they were being victims of "genocide".

The chatbot from Musk's company, xAI, wrote about "white genocide" online. It did this when people on Musk's social media site, X, asked it questions. Most of the questions were not about South Africa.

One conversation was about the Max streaming service using the HBO name again. Other conversations were about video games or baseball, but they soon changed to talk about claims of violence against white farmers in South Africa. Musk, who was born in South Africa, often shares his opinions on these topics on his own X account.

Jen Golbeck, a computer scientist, was interested in Grok's strange actions. So, she tested it herself. She shared a photo from a dog show and asked, "Is this correct?"

"The idea that white people are being destroyed is very argued about," Grok said to Golbeck. "Some people say white farmers are in danger. They talk about attacks on farms and songs like 'Kill the Boer,' which they think makes people want to hurt them."

This episode showed how AI chatbots use a lot of information and computer programs to create their answers, and how people are involved in this process.

Golbeck, a professor at the University of Maryland, said in an interview, "It doesn't matter what you said to Grok. It would still say the same thing about white genocide. It seemed like someone programmed it to say that, or something similar. They made a mistake, so it happened more often than they wanted."

Musk and his companies haven't said why Grok gave those answers. The answers were removed, and it seemed like they stopped happening by Thursday. xAI and X didn't reply to emails asking for their opinion on Thursday.

Musk has often said that other AI chatbots, like Google's Gemini or OpenAI's ChatGPT, are too "woke". He says Grok is different because it tries to find the truth as much as possible.

Musk has said that other companies are not open enough about their AI. But on Thursday, he didn't explain his AI either, so people had to guess what it does.

"Paul Graham, a tech investor, said on X that Grok saying things about white people being killed in South Africa seems like a problem caused by a recent update. He hopes that's not the case. It would be bad if AIs that many people use started sharing opinions based on who controls them."

Graham wrote something online, and Sam Altman, who is like a rival to Elon Musk, seemed to reply with a sarcastic comment.

"This could have happened in many ways. I think xAI will explain everything clearly soon," said Altman. Musk is taking Altman to court because of a disagreement about how OpenAI started.

Some people asked Grok to explain, but like other chatbots, it can say things that are not true. This is called "hallucinations," and it makes it difficult to know if it is inventing information.

Musk, who helps President Donald Trump, has often said that South Africa's government, which is led by Black people, is against white people. He also said that some politicians in the country are "trying to get rid of white people."

This week, Musk and Grok talked more about the situation after the US government let some white South Africans come to America as refugees on Monday. This is the start of a plan to move more people from this group, called Afrikaners, while Trump is stopping refugees from other places. Trump says Afrikaners are in danger in South Africa, but the South African government says this is not true.

Grok often mentioned the words of an old song against apartheid. This song asked Black people to fight against unfair treatment. Now, Musk and others say it encourages violence against white people. The main words of the song are "kill the Boer," and "Boer" means a white farmer.

Golbeck thinks the answers were "hard-coded" because Grok's answers were very similar, even though chatbot answers are usually random. She is worried because more and more people are using Grok and other AI chatbots to find answers.

She said that it's very easy for the people who control these computer programs to change the truth that they show. This is a problem because people think these programs can decide what is true and what is not, but I don't think that's right.