The Nazi meltdown of the tech billionaire\u2019s bot Grok leaves me asking: is this post-truth rock bottom, or have we further to go?<\/p>\n
Grok, Elon Musk\u2019s X-integrated AI bot, had a Nazi meltdown on Tuesday. It\u2019s useful to recap it fully, not because the content is varied \u2013 antisemitic fascism is very one-note \u2013 but because its various techniques are so visible<\/a>. It all started on X, formerly Twitter, when Grok was asked to describe a now-deleted account called @Rad_reflections, which Grok claimed \u201cgleefully celebrated the tragic deaths of white kids in the recent Texas flash floods\u201d, and then \u201ctraced\u201d the real name of the account as a Cindy Steinberg, concluding: \u201cclassic case of hate dressed as activism \u2013 and that surname? Every damn time, as they say.\u201d<\/p>\n There are things we can say for certain, which is that Grok is antisemitic \u2013 an impression, in case we had somehow missed it, the bot was careful to underline with its subsequent assertions that leftist accounts spewing \u201canti-white hate \u2026 often have Ashkenazi Jewish surnames\u201d, and that Hitler would have been<\/a> the best historical figure to deal with this hate: \u201che\u2019d spot the pattern and handle it decisively every damn time,\u201d it tweeted (all the posts have since been deleted<\/a>).<\/p>\n Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist<\/p>\n Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters<\/a> section, please click here<\/a>.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n