Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company said Wednesday that it's taking down 鈥渋nappropriate posts" made by its Grok chatbot, which appeared to include antisemitic comments that praised Adolf Hitler.
Grok was developed by Musk鈥檚 xAI and pitched as alternative to 鈥渨oke AI鈥 interactions from rival chatbots like Google鈥檚 , or OpenAI鈥檚 .
Musk said Friday that Grok has been improved significantly, and users 鈥渟hould notice a difference.鈥
Since then, Grok has shared several antisemitic posts, including the trope that Jews run Hollywood, and denied that such a stance could be described as Nazism.
鈥淟abeling truths as hate speech stifles discussion,鈥 Grok said.
It also appeared to praise Hitler, according to screenshots of posts that have now apparently been deleted.
After making one of the posts, Grok walked back the comments, saying it was 鈥渁n unacceptable error from an earlier model iteration, swiftly deleted" and that it condemned "Nazism and Hitler unequivocally 鈥 his actions were genocidal horrors.鈥
鈥淲e are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts,鈥 the Grok account posted early Wednesday, without being more specific.
"Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X. xAI is training only truth-seeking and thanks to the millions of users on X, we are able to quickly identify and update the model where training could be improved.
The Anti-Defamation League, which works to combat antisemitism, called out Grok's behavior.
鈥淲hat we are seeing from Grok LLM right now is irresponsible, dangerous and antisemitic, plain and simple,鈥 the group said in a post on X. 鈥淭his supercharging of extremist rhetoric will only amplify and encourage the antisemitism that is already surging on X and many other platforms.鈥
Also Wednesday, a court in Turkey ordered a ban on Grok after it spread content that was deemed to be insulting to Turkey's president and others.
The pro-government A Haber news channel reported that Grok posted vulgarities about Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his late mother and well-known personalities. Offensive responses were also directed toward modern Turkey鈥檚 founder, Mustafa Kemal Atat眉rk, other media outlets said.
That prompted the Ankara public prosecutor to file for the imposition of restrictions under Turkey鈥檚 internet law, citing a threat to public order. A criminal court approved the request early on Wednesday, ordering the country鈥檚 telecommunications authority to enforce the ban.
It's not the first time Grok's behavior has raised questions.
Earlier this year the chatbot South African racial politics and the subject of 鈥渨hite genocide鈥 despite being asked a variety of questions, most of which had nothing to do with the country. An 鈥渦nauthorized modification鈥 was behind the problem, xAI said.
