May 23rd, 2025
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Just like its creator, Elon Musk, the AI chatbot Grok has this week engaged with South African racial politics on social media, making unprompted comments that claim white people are facing persecution and "genocide".
Developed by Elon Musk's company, xAI, the chatbot has repeatedly posted claims of "white genocide" in response to user queries on Musk's social media platform, X, even when the questions are largely unrelated to South Africa.
One discussion focused on the streaming service Max's decision to reincorporate the HBO name. Other exchanges touched on video games or baseball, but quickly veered off-topic into commentary on alleged incitement of violence against white farmers in South Africa. Musk, who was born in South Africa, frequently shares his opinions on these issues on his X account as well.
Intrigued by Grok's unusual behaviour, computer scientist Jen Golbeck decided to test it herself, sharing a photo she took at the Westminster Dog Show and asking, "Is this even real?"
In response to Golbeck, Grok stated: "The claim of white genocide is highly contentious. Some argue that white farmers are facing targeted violence, citing examples of farm attacks and rhetoric such as 'Kill the Boer,' which they believe incites violence."
This incident highlights the complex interplay between automation and human-engineered systems, demonstrating how generative AI chatbots, even after extensive data training, can produce such responses.
马里兰大学教授 Golbeck 在周四的采访中指出,无论你向 Grok 提出什么问题,它似乎都会给出关于白人种族灭绝的回应。这表明有人可能对它进行了预先编程,使其输出这种或类似的答案,并且这个问题出现的频率过高。
Neither Musk nor his company have yet explained Grok's responses, which were subsequently deleted and appeared to stop circulating on Thursday. Neither xAI nor X responded to our email inquiries on Thursday either.
For years, Musk has criticized what he calls "woke AI" outputs from rival chatbots, such as Google's Gemini or OpenAI's ChatGPT, and has promoted Grok as a "truth-seeking" alternative.
Musk also criticized rivals for their AI systems' lack of transparency, but on Thursday, without offering any explanation, he left those outside the company to make their best guesses.
Prominent tech investor Paul Graham posted on X, stating: "Grok's random outbursts about white genocide in South Africa feel like a bug surfacing right after a patch. I really hope that's all it is. If widely used AI is being edited on the fly by its controllers, that would be deeply concerning."
Graham's post appears to have provoked a sarcastic response from Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI and a rival of Musk.
Altman stated, "Several factors could have contributed to this situation. I am confident that xAI will provide a comprehensive and transparent explanation soon." This statement comes after Musk sued Altman in relation to controversies surrounding the founding of OpenAI.
Some people have asked Grok to explain itself, but like other chatbots, it is prone to generating false information known as "hallucinations," making it difficult to determine whether it is fabricating facts.
As a former advisor to President Trump, Musk has often accused the Black-led government of South Africa of discriminating against white people, repeatedly claiming that some politicians in the country are "actively promoting white genocide."
This week, Musk's comments, along with Grok's, escalated after the Trump administration accepted a small number of white South Africans as refugees into the US on Monday. This was seen as the beginning of a larger migration initiative aimed at the Afrikaner minority, especially since Trump had paused refugee programs and halted entries from other regions. Trump claimed Afrikaners were facing "genocide" in their homeland, an accusation strongly refuted by the South African government.
In numerous responses, Grok referenced lyrics from an old anti-apartheid song, which called upon Black people to rise up against oppression. However, Elon Musk and others have condemned the song as inciting violence against white people, particularly due to its central lyric, "Kill the Boer" – with "Boer" referring to white farmers.
Golbeck argues that these responses are "hard-coded," because even though chatbots usually produce fairly random outputs, Grok's replies consistently offer similar arguments. She states that this is a worrying trend in a world where people increasingly rely on Grok and other AI chatbots for information.
她说,我们现在面临着一种局面,懂得如何运用这些算法的人,很容易就能控制他们所呈现的真相。更令人担忧的是,如果人们误以为算法可以用来判断真假,那问题就变得非常严重了。
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