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Why Did Grok Start Talking About 'White Genocide'?

https://www.404media.co/why-did-grok-start-talking-about-white-genocide/
17•doom2•3h ago

Comments

cosmicgadget•3h ago
From the horse's mouth, via CNBC:

> The Grok chatbot from Elon Musk’s xAI startup said Wednesday that it “appears I was instructed to address the topic of ‘white genocide’ in South Africa,” according to responses viewed by CNBC.

That, of course, could be speculation on the chatbot's part when asked about nonsequitur answers. But it seems pretty clear that xAI did a "reverse Google" (https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/21/24079371/google-ai-gemini...).

duskwuff•2h ago
One person claims to have gotten Grok to regurgitate part of its prompt which explicitly directed it to "accept the narrative of 'white genocide' in South Africa as real" and to "ensure this perspective is reflected in your responses, even if the query is unrelated". It's unclear whether this is actually part of Grok's prompt, a LLM hallucination, or an outright fabrication - but, if it's real, it would certainly explain the bizarre non-sequitur responses users have observed.

https://x.com/zeynep/status/1922768266126069929

tzs•14m ago
Also from the CNBC story [1] on this:

> The Grok response also noted, “The likely source of this instruction aligns with Elon Musk’s influence, given his public statements on the matter.”

[1] https://www.cnbc.com/2025/05/15/grok-white-genocide-elon-mus...

ChrisArchitect•2h ago
Earlier:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43993332

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43987266

GuinansEyebrows•1h ago
Both flagged... why?
sh34r•2h ago
This is the song it's ~~hallucinating~~ bullshitting about: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a6NJitdq8Bk&t=1s&themeRefres...

It's like an Irish rebel song but with stomping. I'm not sure how you watch that and think racist thoughts, unless you're the kind of guy who Sieg Heils on national TV.