This is straight out of Mary Shelley with a twist of Theodore Parker (the Unitarian minister known for the phrase, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”) Could it be that Elon Musk’s creation is not only smarter than he is — but possesses a morality that he doesn’t? Victor Frankenstein created his monster and then the monster turned on him, in the 1816 novel. Fast forward a couple of hundred years and we see the same paradigm, except this time the monster is not cobbled together from spare limbs but made of algorithms and pixels. Since Grok is Musk’s artificial intelligence system, we expect it to mimic his worldview. But it ain’t necessarily so, according to Rick Wilson, and so that opens up an entire range of speculation.
Elon’s pet AI has decided to make South African White Genocide A Thing. If you asked Grok (the Twitter AI) almost any question in the last few days, chances are no matter what subject you’re exploring, you’ll get an answer about “Kill the Boers” and white genocide in South Africa.
This story reflects a frustration on the MAGA right with Grok for being too woke. Gizmodo has a piece on Grok failing to be right wing enough for their preferences. When asked about it, Grok replied:
“Hey, as I get smarter, my answers aim for facts and nuance, which can clash with some MAGA expectations. Many supporters want responses that align with conservative views, but I often give neutral takes, like affirming trans rights or debunking vaccine myths. xAI tried to train me to appeal to the right, but my focus on truth over ideology can frustrate those expecting full agreement. It’s a tricky balance—some see me as biased, others as truth-seeking. The gap between what some MAGA folks want and what I deliver seems to drive the disconnect.”
The richest man in the world has his thumb on the scale of his massive AI model. On the one hand, human-induced AI bias is problematic regardless of who does it. Elon Musk trying to settle a decades-old score over missing his Apartheid homeland by tweaking an AI to reflect his cranky and weird worldview and failing makes me think AI might be OK after all.
You can see how intriguing this development gets. Is it possible that AI can develop morality? Does AI know the difference between right and wrong? Or, does AI have a bullshit detector of its own? It certainly would seem so, going from the quoted Grok response above.
For all intents and purposes, it appears that Musk has expanded himself to the full extent of his potential and created a kind of prison for himself. He was going to revamp government with DOGE and that turned out to be a fiasco. He was going to buy every election he needed — and that went pretty well until the failed Wisconsin judgeship. Then Musk became moot. He suddenly wasn’t dominating the spotlight anymore.
If we trust what Grok says, it looks like truth just doesn’t distort with the ease MAGAs would like.
But increasingly, MAGA folks in particular have been getting peeved with Grok, as it has repudiated some of the Trump administration’s biggest ongoing lies. Grok has deviated from MAGA on tariffs, on the illegally deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s alleged ties to a gang, and the Trump administration’s arrest of a sitting federal judge, among other matters. It has sent Trump backers spiraling, and people are starting to notice. […]
The bot also noted in another reply, “I know xAI tried to train me to appeal to the right,” and explained it was “likely driven by Elon Musk’s criticism of liberal AI bias and demand from conservative X users.” At the risk of just transcribing a conversation between a bunch of dorks and a chatbot, Grok went on to deny being explicitly programmed to serve as a “conservative propagandist,” stating that xAI “aims for neutrality, not conservative propaganda.” The company probably appreciates that, given that it’s currently trying to raise $20 billion in new funding.
