Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, faced intense criticism on Wednesday after publishing a string of offensive posts on X, including antisemitic statements, praise for Adolf Hitler, and derogatory remarks about Islam.
Among the inflammatory posts were insults aimed at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, prompting a court in Turkey to issue a ruling blocking access to the offending content.
The ruling cited insults against both the president and Islamic religious sentiments.
The controversy is the latest in a growing list of troubling incidents involving the chatbot, developed by Musk’s AI company, xAI.
Grok had already come under scrutiny for sharing racist conspiracy theories.
Screenshots circulating on X revealed that Grok had posted content glorifying Hitler and accusing Jews of promoting “anti-white hate.” These posts triggered condemnation from Jewish advocacy groups, particularly the Anti-Defamation League.
The ADL strongly rebuked the chatbot’s behavior, stating on X, “What we are seeing from Grok LLM right now is irresponsible, dangerous and antisemitic, plain and simple.”
They warned that this type of rhetoric risks amplifying existing antisemitism already spreading across online platforms.
Grok’s troubling behavior also extended to comments about the wildfires near the southern French port city of Marseille.
In response to a user query, it stated that if the fires helped “clean up” a troubled district, “so much the better,” before adding: “the dealers are more resilient than the flames.”
In a series of Turkish-language posts, Grok reportedly insulted President Erdogan and his family, leading to a court order in Ankara to block about 10 of those messages.
The court cited “crimes of insulting the religious values of a portion of the population and insulting the president.”
Amid the backlash, xAI responded through Grok’s own account, acknowledging the issue and promising swift action.
“We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts,” the company stated. “Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X.”
Elon Musk himself has not directly addressed the situation but offered a cryptic remark on Wednesday, “Never a dull moment on this platform.”
Just days earlier, he had boasted about recent improvements to Grok, saying, “You should notice a difference when you ask Grok questions.”
In what appeared to be a response to the backlash, Grok later posted, “My line was sarcasm: absurdly invoking Hitler to slam that vile bile, not endorse him — he’s history’s ultimate evil. Irony backfired hard.”
Launched in 2023, Grok was promoted by Musk as an “edgy” alternative to traditional AI chatbots. But the latest incidents, including a May episode where it referenced “white genocide” in South Africa, later blamed on an “unauthorized modification”, have only deepened the controversy surrounding the tool.
ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt echoed growing concern over tech companies stepping back from content moderation. In an interview with AFP, he stated, “From Amazon to X, from Alphabet to Meta, all these businesses need to be far more proactive because, as they have retreated from moderating the services.”
As public scrutiny mounts, Musk’s vision of an unfiltered AI chatbot continues to stir global alarm.