4 ms·

I feel a little less worried about Elon being able to tweak Grok for the benefit of his own propaganda goals now that we can see how blatantly obvious it is whe

I feel a little less worried about Elon being able to tweak Grok for the benefit of his own propaganda goals now that we can see how blatantly obvious it is when it happens.

observationist 1y ago
Similar things have happened to OpenAI and Claude - context gets leaked from somewhere it's not supposed to. In this case, the white refugees are trending; it's likely context is leaking in from grok checking the users feed and such. Or you can pretend Elon Musk is a cartoon villain, whatever floats your boat.
- wewtyflakes 1y ago
  Did we read the same thing? This seemed reminiscent of https://www.anthropic.com/news/golden-gate-claude https://www.anthropic.com/news/golden-gate-claude, of which was an experiment done on purpose.
- amanaplanacanal 1y ago
  Nah, not cartoon.
- subjectsigma 1y ago
  Elon Musk pretty much is a cartoon villain, and refugees are an important topic, but I think that’s almost irrelevant when considering the question at hand, which is whether or not the output from Grok is biased and inflammatory. I believe it is, but endless speculation about why is probably not a good idea when we’re talking about a literal nonsense generator. Nobody fucking understands why LLMs do half the things they do. I think no matter the cause, users should demand better quality and/or switch to a different model. Or, you know, stop trusting a magical black box to think for them.
- EnPissant 1y ago
  In addition, the reply doesn't even support Elon Musk's position. Clearly, this is either a bug, responding to a deleted tweet, or something else.
  - dinfinity 1y ago
    Except that it will trigger a lot of people to find that "Kill the Boer" song and will search for "south africa white genocide". Pretty sure most people won't come out of that with a particularly nuanced view of the situation in South Africa. Good manipulation is subtle.
    - Kivern7 1y ago
      Excuse me, are you suggesting that any amount of "nuance" could make these acceptable? Or that people "finding" out about it is a bad thing?
      - dinfinity 1y ago
        It's a matter of selection bias, presented as neutrality. Focusing most of the attention on one side of the matter lacks nuance.
    - EnPissant 1y ago
      We must have different definitions of subtle.
      - dinfinity 1y ago
        Well, the random placement is not very subtle, but the feigned neutrality will fool most readers.
        EnPissant 1y ago
        Looks pretty neutral to me.
  - int_19h 1y ago
    It doesn't support Musk's position because Grok is smart enough to know when its system prompt is obvious bullshit.
- rideontime 1y ago
  This very specific context? Multiple Grok replies suggest that it's being prompted with a particular image: https://x.com/grok/status/1922671571665310162 https://x.com/grok/status/1922671571665310162 e: And since that reply is in the same thread, here's an example of it happening in a completely different one. Not difficult to find these. https://x.com/grok/status/1922682536762958026 https://x.com/grok/status/1922682536762958026
  - burkaman 1y ago
    Yeah it really looks like someone added something about South Africa to the system prompt. Just scroll through its latest replies until you see one with an unprompted South Africa discussion, it won't take long: https://xcancel.com/grok/with_replies https://xcancel.com/grok/with_replies
- jrflowers 1y ago
  > Or you can pretend Elon Musk is a cartoon villain What do you think villains do in cartoons
tastyface 1y ago
This is just a stupid trial run. Eventually, this type of propaganda will become far more subtle and insidious.
empath75 1y ago
For whatever reason, all the LLMs of a certain size _seem_ to have a very strong sense of right and wrong. (I say "seem", because it's mostly consistent with what a person who had a strong sense of right and wrong would say, but who knows what is really going on inside.)

I feel a little less worried about Elon being able to tweak Grok for the benefit of his own propaganda goals now that we can see how blatantly obvious it is when it happens.

observationist 1y ago

Similar things have happened to OpenAI and Claude - context gets leaked from somewhere it's not supposed to. In this case, the white refugees are trending; it's likely context is leaking in from grok checking the users feed and such. Or you can pretend Elon Musk is a cartoon villain, whatever floats your boat.

wewtyflakes 1y ago
Did we read the same thing? This seemed reminiscent of https://www.anthropic.com/news/golden-gate-claude https://www.anthropic.com/news/golden-gate-claude, of which was an experiment done on purpose.
amanaplanacanal 1y ago
Nah, not cartoon.
subjectsigma 1y ago
Elon Musk pretty much is a cartoon villain, and refugees are an important topic, but I think that’s almost irrelevant when considering the question at hand, which is whether or not the output from Grok is biased and inflammatory. I believe it is, but endless speculation about why is probably not a good idea when we’re talking about a literal nonsense generator. Nobody fucking understands why LLMs do half the things they do. I think no matter the cause, users should demand better quality and/or switch to a different model. Or, you know, stop trusting a magical black box to think for them.
EnPissant 1y ago
In addition, the reply doesn't even support Elon Musk's position. Clearly, this is either a bug, responding to a deleted tweet, or something else.
- dinfinity 1y ago
  Except that it will trigger a lot of people to find that "Kill the Boer" song and will search for "south africa white genocide". Pretty sure most people won't come out of that with a particularly nuanced view of the situation in South Africa. Good manipulation is subtle.
  - Kivern7 1y ago
    Excuse me, are you suggesting that any amount of "nuance" could make these acceptable? Or that people "finding" out about it is a bad thing?
    - dinfinity 1y ago
      It's a matter of selection bias, presented as neutrality. Focusing most of the attention on one side of the matter lacks nuance.
  - EnPissant 1y ago
    We must have different definitions of subtle.
    - dinfinity 1y ago
      Well, the random placement is not very subtle, but the feigned neutrality will fool most readers.
      - EnPissant 1y ago
        Looks pretty neutral to me.
- int_19h 1y ago
  It doesn't support Musk's position because Grok is smart enough to know when its system prompt is obvious bullshit.
rideontime 1y ago
This very specific context? Multiple Grok replies suggest that it's being prompted with a particular image: https://x.com/grok/status/1922671571665310162 https://x.com/grok/status/1922671571665310162 e: And since that reply is in the same thread, here's an example of it happening in a completely different one. Not difficult to find these. https://x.com/grok/status/1922682536762958026 https://x.com/grok/status/1922682536762958026
- burkaman 1y ago
  Yeah it really looks like someone added something about South Africa to the system prompt. Just scroll through its latest replies until you see one with an unprompted South Africa discussion, it won't take long: https://xcancel.com/grok/with_replies https://xcancel.com/grok/with_replies
jrflowers 1y ago
> Or you can pretend Elon Musk is a cartoon villain What do you think villains do in cartoons

tastyface 1y ago

This is just a stupid trial run. Eventually, this type of propaganda will become far more subtle and insidious.

empath75 1y ago

For whatever reason, all the LLMs of a certain size _seem_ to have a very strong sense of right and wrong. (I say "seem", because it's mostly consistent with what a person who had a strong sense of right and wrong would say, but who knows what is really going on inside.)