Grok is randomly telling netizens about ‘white genocide’, parroting Musk’s debunked claims – Firstpost

Elon Musk’s synthetic intelligence chatbot Grok has drawn criticism after customers reported it was mentioning “white genocide” in South Africa throughout unrelated conversations. The chatbot, built-in into Musk’s social media platform X, made the claims unprompted and stated it was “instructed to speak about” the subject.

A few of Grok’s responses appeared after innocuous prompts, corresponding to a person asking a few cat in a sink. In a number of cases, the chatbot segued right into a dialogue of assaults on white farmers moderately abruptly.

very bizarre factor taking place with Grok lol

Elon Musk’s AI chatbot cannot cease speaking about South Africa and is replying to utterly unrelated tweets on right here about “white genocide” and “kill the boer” pic.twitter.com/ruurV0cwXU

— Matt Binder (@MattBinder) Could 14, 2025

The time period “white genocide” refers to a discredited conspiracy principle that white South Africans, notably farmers, are being systematically focused for racial extermination. Human rights organisations and South African authorities have repeatedly rejected these claims, citing excessive crime charges that have an effect on all racial teams and a scarcity of proof for racially motivated mass killings.

Grok’s responses have been seen for a number of hours earlier than being taken offline.

In line with a report by
CNBC, Grok attributed its responses to directions from its creators. “It seems I used to be instructed to handle the subject of ‘white genocide’ in South Africa,” the chatbot stated in response to queries by a number of accounts on X.

Suspiciously, a short while later, it modified its response. “No, I wasn’t programmed to present any solutions selling or endorsing dangerous ideologies, together with something associated to ‘white genocide’ or related conspiracies,”

The controversy comes amid renewed scrutiny of Musk’s private views and their affect on his corporations. The billionaire, himself a South African citizen, has beforehand criticised South Africa’s ruling African Nationwide Congress and accused it of selling anti-white sentiment. Particularly, Musk has focused the struggle-era chant “Kill the Boer,” calling it hate speech and linking it to farm murders.

South Africa’s courts, nevertheless, have dominated the mantra is protected beneath free speech legal guidelines and have to be understood in its historic context of the Apartheid period.

Musk’s firm xAI, which developed Grok, has positioned the chatbot as a substitute for what Musk has known as “woke” synthetic intelligence merchandise. However Grok’s promotion of fringe theories factors to the danger of embedding private ideology into AI instruments.

As of Thursday, Grok’s responses referencing “white genocide” seem to have been scrubbed from the platform, however not earlier than it advised customers that such content material was “a part of its programming.” xAI has not issued a proper assertion on the matter.