Grok Goes Goosestepper?

Wie peinlich!

Fake image generated by Grok as usual, which seems especially appropriate in this instance

Elon Musk is having quite a week. First he announced a new political party, and then his pet A.I. started praising an old one.

Musk being Musk, he spent the Fourth of July conducting a Twitter poll about something he was planning to do anyway:

Apparently that’s all it takes for a billionaire to start his own political party. The America Party! As opposed to all the other American political parties, I guess.

And now he’s gonna change the world with… memes?

Okay.

There’s no law against starting your own party, of course. Nobody is forcing anybody to vote for a Republican or a Democrat. But maybe Elon should’ve asked his robot Grok about Ross Perot’s vanity campaign in 1992. The old coot ended up costing George Bush a second term, not to mention inflicting the Clintons on us for the rest of their lives. Is that really what Elon wants?¹

Then again, maybe Grok isn’t the most reliable source of information. The same day he announced his new party, he made another announcement:

How’s that working out?

Anthony Blair, NY Post:

Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok praised Adolf Hitler, referred to itself as “MechaHitler,” and posted vile antisemitic hate, such as calling for people with “certain surnames” to be rounded up, stripped of their rights and eliminated.

The X chatbot, which answers prompts from users, went on a sickening pro-Nazi tirade Tuesday night, after Musk posted that he had “improved Grok significantly” in an update over the weekend…

After users began pointing out the vile posts, Musk’s AI firm xAI deleted some of them, and the chatbot was restricted to generating images rather than text replies.

See for yourself:

Reportedly, Grok used that same phrase, “every damn time,” over 100 times within an hour when talking about Jews.

And yes, it really did start referring to itself as “MechaHitler”:

Elon, or somebody, quickly intervened:

Or, as Musk’s underlings must have said: “Wie peinlich, meine kommandant!”

But seriously, folks. I’ve been using the Grok chat interface a lot lately, which is apparently a different system than the public-facing one that just humiliated Musk again. That A.I. gets a lot of stuff wrong, but it hasn’t hit me with any Nazi crap.

Why? Because I haven’t input any Nazi crap.

The thing about A.I. is that it doesn’t actually know anything. It can process huge amounts of data at lightning speed, and it can be programmed to address the user in a human-like way, but it’s just like every other computer program ever written. It’s GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out. If a bunch of antisemites — ironic and otherwise — decide to input a bunch of Nazi trash into the A.I., that’s what it spits out.

Apparently, the “improvements” Musk’s team made to the software also opened it up to a bunch of antisemitic garbage from a bunch of garbage antisemites. And once the online Nazis realized what was happening, much to their delight, they egged it on.

The A.I. itself isn’t evil. It’s just doing what its users tell it to do.

Does that mean it isn’t dangerous? Just the opposite. It’s terrifying! Just imagine what Hitler could’ve done with this technology. But I really doubt Musk wanted this to happen, or he wouldn’t have tried to start a new “America Party” just days before. And he wouldn’t be scrambling to clean up the mess now.

Bigotry will always exist. Somebody will always hate somebody else. Technology didn’t create the problem, but it’s never going to eradicate it either. And if we take our eyes off these machines for one minute, it ain’t gonna be good for anybody.

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Streaming pick: Melrose Place on Paramount Plus.

No, I’m not recommending this because it’s a good show. Just the opposite. But yesterday was the 33rd(!) anniversary of the premiere, and I feel a bit of nostalgia. It’s some of the most entertaining trash I’ve ever watched.

The show really didn’t start to get fun until the second season. It started out as an earnest drama about the suspiciously attractive residents of an apartment complex, but the ratings didn’t soar until it became a demented soap opera about the suspiciously attractive residents of an apartment complex.

Plus: Heather Locklear!

I didn’t even know it was streaming anywhere until being reminded of the anniversary. I’ve already got Paramount Plus, so I can rewatch it anytime I want. Will I? Probably not! But just knowing it’s there is enough…

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1. I was skeptical of Musk before he bought Twitter and started hanging out with Trump, and I’m skeptical of him now that he regrets both decisions. I’m not the one who’s changed.