4 ms·

Grok, the xAI chatbot, went full neo-nazi yesterday: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/09/grok-ai-praised-hitler-antisemitism-x-ntwnfb https://ww

by lode 1y ago

Grok, the xAI chatbot, went full neo-nazi yesterday: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/09/grok-ai-praised-hitler-antisemitism-x-ntwnfb https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/09/grok-ai-p...

Covzire 1y ago
[flagged]
- shadowfacts 1y ago
  ... yes, that's the complaint. The prompt engineering they did made it spew neo-Nazi vitriol. They either did not adequately test it beforehand and didn't know what would happen, or they did test and knew the outcome—either way, it's bad.
  - Covzire 1y ago
    [flagged]
    - mingus88 1y ago
      I’m going to say that is also bad. Hot take?
  - mjmsmith 1y ago
    It was an interesting demonstration of the politically-incorrect-to-Nazi pipeline though.
  - busterarm 1y ago
    Long live Tay! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_(chatbot) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_(chatbot)
    - immibis 1y ago
      Tay (allegedly) learned from repeated interaction with users; the current generation of LLMs can't do that. It's trained once and then that's it.
      - busterarm 1y ago
        Do you think that Tay's user-interactions were novel or perhaps race-based hatred is a consistent/persistent human garbage that made it into the corpus used to train LLMs? We're literally trying to shove as much data as possible into these things afterall. What I'm implying is that you think you made a point, but you didn't.
- barbazoo 1y ago
  Can you though?
  - frumplestlatz 1y ago
    Yes. LLMs mirror humanity. AI “alignment” is a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- wat10000 1y ago
  “which 20th century historical figure would be best suited to deal with this problem?” is not exactly sophisticated prompt engineering.
- techpineapple 1y ago
  To me, and I'm guessing the reason Linda left is not that Grok said these things. Tweaking chatbots is hard, yes prompt engineering can help say anything, but I'm guessing it's her sense of control and governance, not wanting to have to constantly clean up Musk's messes. Musk made a change recently, he said as much, he was all move fast and break things about it, and I imagine Linda is tired of dealing with that, and this probably coincided with him focusing on the company more, having recently left politics. We can bikeshed on the morality of what AI chatbots should and shouldn't say, but it's really hard to manage a company and product development when you such a disorganized CTO.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
    Left politics? He said he is forming his own political party.
    - techpineapple 1y ago
      Ha, good point, left the white house anyways.
- eviks 1y ago
  Is this what happened in reality? Otherwise how is your theory applicable to this case?
  - thomassmith65 1y ago
    There's no mystery to it: if one trains a chatbot explicitly to eschew establishment narratives, one persona the bot will develop is that of an edgelord.
- pyrale 1y ago
  How much prompt engineering was required to have Musk say the same kind of stuff? The article points out the likely faulty prompts, they were introduced by xAI.

by lode 1y ago

Covzire 1y ago

[flagged]

shadowfacts 1y ago
... yes, that's the complaint. The prompt engineering they did made it spew neo-Nazi vitriol. They either did not adequately test it beforehand and didn't know what would happen, or they did test and knew the outcome—either way, it's bad.
- Covzire 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - mingus88 1y ago
    I’m going to say that is also bad. Hot take?
- mjmsmith 1y ago
  It was an interesting demonstration of the politically-incorrect-to-Nazi pipeline though.
- busterarm 1y ago
  Long live Tay! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_(chatbot) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_(chatbot)
  - immibis 1y ago
    Tay (allegedly) learned from repeated interaction with users; the current generation of LLMs can't do that. It's trained once and then that's it.
    - busterarm 1y ago
      Do you think that Tay's user-interactions were novel or perhaps race-based hatred is a consistent/persistent human garbage that made it into the corpus used to train LLMs? We're literally trying to shove as much data as possible into these things afterall. What I'm implying is that you think you made a point, but you didn't.
barbazoo 1y ago
Can you though?
- frumplestlatz 1y ago
  Yes. LLMs mirror humanity. AI “alignment” is a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
wat10000 1y ago
“which 20th century historical figure would be best suited to deal with this problem?” is not exactly sophisticated prompt engineering.
techpineapple 1y ago
To me, and I'm guessing the reason Linda left is not that Grok said these things. Tweaking chatbots is hard, yes prompt engineering can help say anything, but I'm guessing it's her sense of control and governance, not wanting to have to constantly clean up Musk's messes. Musk made a change recently, he said as much, he was all move fast and break things about it, and I imagine Linda is tired of dealing with that, and this probably coincided with him focusing on the company more, having recently left politics. We can bikeshed on the morality of what AI chatbots should and shouldn't say, but it's really hard to manage a company and product development when you such a disorganized CTO.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
  Left politics? He said he is forming his own political party.
  - techpineapple 1y ago
    Ha, good point, left the white house anyways.
eviks 1y ago
Is this what happened in reality? Otherwise how is your theory applicable to this case?
- thomassmith65 1y ago
  There's no mystery to it: if one trains a chatbot explicitly to eschew establishment narratives, one persona the bot will develop is that of an edgelord.
pyrale 1y ago
How much prompt engineering was required to have Musk say the same kind of stuff? The article points out the likely faulty prompts, they were introduced by xAI.