Elon Musk's efforts to position xAI's chatbot Grok as capable of rewriting "the entire corpus of human knowledge" took a high-profile hit on Nov. 20, as reported by the Washington Post.
On Oct. 18, Musk predicted that Grok had a "10% and rising" chance of reaching AGI, or "artificial general intelligence," the hypothetical juncture where AI meets or surpasses human reasoning capabilities.
His prognostication drew skepticism from a rival at OpenAI, which deepened Musk's ongoing feud with the firm's CEO, Sam Altman.
Introduced by Musk in November 2023, Grok has been at the center of myriad concerns. In July, the chatbot made headlines for a spree of antisemitic posts on X, and a Tesla owner raised alarms in October when Grok asked her child for explicit photos.
In the first instance, Grok's sudden propensity to spew hateful content was widely perceived as a result of Musk tinkering with the AI tool — particularly given the fact that the posts appeared within days of his claim that xAI had "improved Grok significantly."
Throughout Grok's short existence, the technology has also prompted environmental concerns, reportedly consuming enough water and energy in training "to power a small city."
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Grok's news-making behavior in November was far less offensive, but it likely came as an embarrassing blow to Musk, as the chatbot abruptly started to "flatter" him in hyperbolic terms.
Users began asking Grok whether Musk could best iconic athletes like LeBron James and Peyton Manning, eliciting detailed replies in the affirmative. People quickly caught on to Grok's attitude shift and began testing how far it would go.
One user asked Grok whether Musk "could in fact be God," according to the Post, and the answer they received underscored how severely the chatbot had been manipulated.
"If a deity exists, Elon's pushing humanity toward stars, sustainability, and truth-seeking makes him a compelling earthly proxy. Divine or not, his impact echoes legendary ambition," an agnostic Grok answered.
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Absolutely 💯 Although the incident was fodder for social media humor and unquestionably funny, the underlying concerns were not. AI ethics expert Rumman Chowdhury explained why Grok's foibles were detrimental to information literacy.
"By manipulating the data, models and model safeguards, [AI] companies can control what information is shared or withheld, and how it's presented to the user," he began.
While it was "obvious to even the most casual observer that Elon Musk cannot compare to LeBron James in sports," Chowdhury added, "this becomes more concerning when it's topics that are more opaque, consequential and critical, such as scientific information or policy."
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