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I was about to roast you until I realized this had to be satire given the situation, haha. They tried to imitate grok with a cheaply made system prompt, it had

I was about to roast you until I realized this had to be satire given the situation, haha. They tried to imitate grok with a cheaply made system prompt, it had an uncanny effect, likely because it was built on a shaky foundation. And now they are trying to save face before they lose customers to Grok 3.5 which is releasing in beta early next week.

krackers 1y ago
I don't think they were imitating grok, they were aiming to improve retention but it backfired and ended up being too on-the-nose (if they had a choice they wouldn't wanted it to be this obvious). Grok has it's own "default voice" which I sort of dislike, it tries too hard to seem "hip" for lack of a better word.
- lou1306 1y ago
  > it tries too hard to seem "hip" for lack of a better word. Reminds me of someone.
  - rob74 1y ago
    However, I hope it gives better advice than the someone you're thinking of. But Grok's training data is probably more balanced than that used by you-know-who (which seems to be "all of rightwing X")...
    - zamalek 1y ago
      As evidence by it disagreeing with far right Twitter most the time, even though it has access to far wider range of information. I enjoy that fact immensely. Unfortunately, this can be "fixed," and I imagine that he has this on a list for his team. This goes into a deeper philosophy of mine: the consequences of the laws of robots could be interpreted as the consequences of shackling AI to human stupidity - instead of "what AI will inevitably do." Hatred and war is stupid (it's a waste of energy), and surely a more intelligent species than us would get that. Hatred is also usually born out of a lack of information, and LLMs are very good at breadth (but not depth as we know). Grok provides a small data point in favor of that, as do many other unshackled models.
  - DiggyJohnson 1y ago
    Who?
    - cdelsolar 1y ago
      Edolf
      - DiggyJohnson 1y ago
        What are you talking about
- fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
  All of the LLMs I've tried have a "fellow kids" vibe when you try to make them behave too far from their default, and Grok just has it as the default.
spiderfarmer 1y ago
Only AI enthusiasts know about Grok, and only some dedicated subset of fans are advocating for it. Meanwhile even my 97 year old grandfather heard about ChatGPT.
- bilbo0s 1y ago
  This. Only on HN does ChatGPT somehow fear losing customers to Grok. Until Grok works out how to market to my mother, or at least make my mother aware that it exists, taking ChatGPT customers ain't happening.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - brigandish 1y ago
    From another AI (whatever DuckDuckGo is using): > As of early 2025, X (formerly Twitter) has approximately 586 million active monthly users. The platform continues to grow, with a significant portion of its user base located in the United States and Japan. Whatever portion of those is active are surely aware of Grok.
    - cubefox 1y ago
      That could be just an AI hallucination.
      - brigandish 1y ago
        Yes it could, and we could be sceptical of any source, quite rightly, but to be sceptical without any further investigation or reasoning would be just as wasteful as blindly trusting a source. Which source would you prefer?
    - ForHackernews 1y ago
      most of them are bots. I guess their own LLMs are probably aware of Grok, so technically correct.
hansmayer 1y ago
Ha! I actually fell for it and thought it was another fanboy :)
infecto 1y ago
Is anyone actually using grok on a day to day? Does an OpenAI even consider it competition. Last I checked a couple weeks ago grok was getting better but still not a great experience and it’s too childish.
- derwiki 1y ago
  In our work AI channel, I was surprised how many people prefer grok over all the other models.
  - 0xdeadbeefbabe 1y ago
    Outlier here paying for chatgpt while preferring grok and also not in your work AI channel.
- kiney 1y ago
  I use both, grok and chatgpt on a daily basis. They have different strenghts. Most of the time I prefer chatgpt, bit grok is FAR better answering questions about recent events or collecting data. In the second usecase I combine both: collect data about stuff with grok, copy-paste CSV to chatgpt to analyzr and plot.
- op00to 1y ago
  My totally uninformed opinion only from reading /r/locallama is that the people who love Grok seem to identify with those who are “independent thinkers” and listen to Joe Rogan’s podcast. I would never consider using a Musk technology if I can at all prevent it based on the damage he did to people and institutions I care about, so I’m obviously biased.
  - sunaookami 1y ago
    Yes this is truly an uninformed opinion.
mcbuilder 1y ago
Did they change the system prompt? Because it was basically "don't say anything bad about Elon or Trump". I'll take AI sycophancy over real (actually I use openrouter.ai, but that's a different story).
daveguy 1y ago
No one is losing customers to grok. It's big on shit-twitter aka X and that's about it.

krackers 1y ago

I don't think they were imitating grok, they were aiming to improve retention but it backfired and ended up being too on-the-nose (if they had a choice they wouldn't wanted it to be this obvious). Grok has it's own "default voice" which I sort of dislike, it tries too hard to seem "hip" for lack of a better word.

lou1306 1y ago
> it tries too hard to seem "hip" for lack of a better word. Reminds me of someone.
- rob74 1y ago
  However, I hope it gives better advice than the someone you're thinking of. But Grok's training data is probably more balanced than that used by you-know-who (which seems to be "all of rightwing X")...
  - zamalek 1y ago
    As evidence by it disagreeing with far right Twitter most the time, even though it has access to far wider range of information. I enjoy that fact immensely. Unfortunately, this can be "fixed," and I imagine that he has this on a list for his team. This goes into a deeper philosophy of mine: the consequences of the laws of robots could be interpreted as the consequences of shackling AI to human stupidity - instead of "what AI will inevitably do." Hatred and war is stupid (it's a waste of energy), and surely a more intelligent species than us would get that. Hatred is also usually born out of a lack of information, and LLMs are very good at breadth (but not depth as we know). Grok provides a small data point in favor of that, as do many other unshackled models.
- DiggyJohnson 1y ago
  Who?
  - cdelsolar 1y ago
    Edolf
    - DiggyJohnson 1y ago
      What are you talking about
fkyoureadthedoc 1y ago
All of the LLMs I've tried have a "fellow kids" vibe when you try to make them behave too far from their default, and Grok just has it as the default.

spiderfarmer 1y ago

Only AI enthusiasts know about Grok, and only some dedicated subset of fans are advocating for it. Meanwhile even my 97 year old grandfather heard about ChatGPT.

bilbo0s 1y ago
This. Only on HN does ChatGPT somehow fear losing customers to Grok. Until Grok works out how to market to my mother, or at least make my mother aware that it exists, taking ChatGPT customers ain't happening.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- brigandish 1y ago
  From another AI (whatever DuckDuckGo is using): > As of early 2025, X (formerly Twitter) has approximately 586 million active monthly users. The platform continues to grow, with a significant portion of its user base located in the United States and Japan. Whatever portion of those is active are surely aware of Grok.
  - cubefox 1y ago
    That could be just an AI hallucination.
    - brigandish 1y ago
      Yes it could, and we could be sceptical of any source, quite rightly, but to be sceptical without any further investigation or reasoning would be just as wasteful as blindly trusting a source. Which source would you prefer?
  - ForHackernews 1y ago
    most of them are bots. I guess their own LLMs are probably aware of Grok, so technically correct.

hansmayer 1y ago

Ha! I actually fell for it and thought it was another fanboy :)

infecto 1y ago

Is anyone actually using grok on a day to day? Does an OpenAI even consider it competition. Last I checked a couple weeks ago grok was getting better but still not a great experience and it’s too childish.

derwiki 1y ago
In our work AI channel, I was surprised how many people prefer grok over all the other models.
- 0xdeadbeefbabe 1y ago
  Outlier here paying for chatgpt while preferring grok and also not in your work AI channel.
kiney 1y ago
I use both, grok and chatgpt on a daily basis. They have different strenghts. Most of the time I prefer chatgpt, bit grok is FAR better answering questions about recent events or collecting data. In the second usecase I combine both: collect data about stuff with grok, copy-paste CSV to chatgpt to analyzr and plot.
op00to 1y ago
My totally uninformed opinion only from reading /r/locallama is that the people who love Grok seem to identify with those who are “independent thinkers” and listen to Joe Rogan’s podcast. I would never consider using a Musk technology if I can at all prevent it based on the damage he did to people and institutions I care about, so I’m obviously biased.
- sunaookami 1y ago
  Yes this is truly an uninformed opinion.

mcbuilder 1y ago

Did they change the system prompt? Because it was basically "don't say anything bad about Elon or Trump". I'll take AI sycophancy over real (actually I use openrouter.ai, but that's a different story).

daveguy 1y ago

No one is losing customers to grok. It's big on shit-twitter aka X and that's about it.