6 ms·
As polarizing as grok is, it was basically inevitable for it to start being a real competitor given how much investment SpaceX made into its own inference capab
by Jcampuzano2 2mo ago
As polarizing as grok is, it was basically inevitable for it to start being a real competitor given how much investment SpaceX made into its own inference capabilities.
Seems if you are okay with it, there's no reason to use anything but the highest effort levels of some other frontier models for the price.
I think Grok provides healthy competition to the other labs, though I do think they bank on groks reputation making it less appealing to many.
- hackernan9000 2mo agoCurious - what is the main issue you find polarizing with grok?
- well_ackshually 2mo ago[flagged]
- inference-god 2mo ago[flagged]
- arrosenberg 2mo agoNot the person you are responding to, but the fact that Grok is being used to generate a ton of CSAM and pornographic deepfakes isn't great!
- dd8601fn 2mo agoIs that still a thing? I assumed they would have done something about it by now.
- porridgeraisin 2mo agoYeah, that got stopped I think.
- pseudosavant 2mo ago[flagged]
- zahlman 2mo ago> So it is still going on How would you know? > Just last week they were fighting Minnesota's law that makes creating this stuff illegal. What law, and what evidence of fighting; and what evidence that their motivation has anything to do with what you allege?
- pseudosavant 2mo agohttps://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49105411 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49105411 Nice semi-colon. Written by AI?
- imagent 2mo ago> Nice semi-colon. Written by AI? Damn I'm going to have to update my personal style again to stay ahead of the AI police (My meta point is that people are altering their personal writing styles to avoid sounding like AI)
- zahlman 2mo ago> Nice semi-colon. Thanks. I've been using them literally for decades. This one is a deliberate stylistic alteration, where a comma would have been the obvious choice, intended to suggest a specific speaking cadence. Your source directly refutes your argument: > In the 38-page lawsuit, xAI — whose AI model chatbot and image generator Grok is available on the social media platform known as X, formerly Twitter, and elsewhere — said it does not contest the state’s interest in banning the distribution of AI-generated nude images of real people without their consent. But it said Minnesota’s law “extends far beyond that goal,” banning many constitutionally protected images and video and subjecting the company to a penalty of $500,000 per violation.
- leerob 2mo ago(I work on Grok) This isn't allowed. CSAM / deepfakes are against our acceptable use policy.
- toasty228 2mo agoEnforce it then
- leerob 2mo agoWe are and will continue to.
- mplewis 2mo ago[flagged]
- Planktonne 2mo agoWhy didn't you before?
- arrosenberg 2mo agoI guess we will find out if it has stopped during the litigation of numerous lawsuits against your company for doing just that.
- mrhottakes 2mo ago
- cheesecakegood 2mo agoIt’s pretty telling that almost all of the bullet points in the system prompt that was posted for Grok have to do with preventing criminality and CSAM generation. No other provider has this same issue at that scale. The first-order-thinking reaction is “oh cool, look how they don’t want it to happen” but the second-order reaction is “why does this company have such a problem when others don’t?” It’s their own tactics. If you want the “good” of 4chan-like behavior, turns out you get the bad too.
- oulipo 2mo ago[flagged]
- itsdesmond 2mo agoIt’s opinions are actively steered by a man who promotes the great replacement theory, white genocide, and remigration which is the mass forced deportation of non-whites.
- porridgeraisin 2mo agoI believe it is because of the CEO and his recent forays into politics. The model itself is great though, especially in grok build, which is a really nice harness I find myself preferring these days.
- dd8601fn 2mo ago[flagged]
- verdverm 2mo agoIt's ongoing and seems more than a foray at this point, the worlds richest person spending heavily on politicians. Thank you SCOTUS for making unlimited money in politics legal, you really united the citizens with that one
- dd8601fn 2mo agoI mean, that's what's funny about it. Musk's "recent foray into politics" is like saying "Germany has engaged in some territorial disputes."
- mrhottakes 2mo ago[flagged]
- heaney-555 2mo agoComparing Musk to Hitler is just deeply unserious.
- Someone1234 2mo agoI'd start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok_(chatbot)#Controversies_and_criticisms https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok_(chatbot)#Controversies_a... And here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok_sexual_deepfake_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok_sexual_deepfake_scandal I think polarizing is a generous way of describing the problems. My organization has outright banned Grok, because we don't trust SpaceX to hold up to contractual agreements vis-a-vis data-privacy/training. That's the level of reputational damage we're talking about here; and we use Chinese models (*hosted by US providers) for context.
- everfrustrated 2mo agoThe US govt trusts SpaceXAI for defense and high security missions. The idea they are lying about contracted AI services is absurd. They're also a public company which beings even more oversight than openai / anthropic.
- Someone1234 2mo agoI think using the current US Government, and their corrupting relationships with SpaceX/SpaceXAi/et al, maybe isn't quite the positive argument you believe it to be. I'd suggest that relationship is why it is unlikely the DoJ wouldn't/hasn't gone after SpaceXAi for some of their existing controversial actions. Nobody else wants to be in the blast radius for whatever SpaceX/SpaceXAi does next, or whatever their next controversy is. It is easier, when asked, "Do you use Grok?" just to be able to answer no, instead of having to explain why you aren't embroiled in whatever is going on this week.
- UberFly 2mo ago"existing controversial actions" Please elaborate. Details would be appreciated.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- bakies 2mo ago
- colinhb 2mo agoFor a start, MechaHitler: https://www.reddit.com/r/grok/s/dKSx4CbRkw https://www.reddit.com/r/grok/s/dKSx4CbRkw
- vhantz 2mo ago[flagged]
- zamalek 2mo agoAssuming I was okay with the political exploits of Elon and his companies: Grok was supposed to be the unbiased model, that is: regurgitate everything it has read. Obviously all data has bias, even all of the data at once, but the sales pitch was that you would get that unfiltered. At least in open source models, this has been shown to improve the competence of the model. Then this happened: https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/grok-describes-elon-musk https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/grok-describes-... So not only has bias been introduced, but they are happily biasing it for trivial reasons. So now the model needs to be competitive in exactly the same way that others are: on benchmarks (which are still not a solved problem). But, I (and many others) disagree with how Elon has behaved politically and don't want to hand money over to him, so all of that is a hypothetical.
- pell 2mo agoIt took many many many turns for me to have the model even acknowledge that the fake elector scheme was actually a thing. It's very much primed to answer vaguely when it goes against the current political ideals of its owner.
- xutopia 2mo agoMy experience as well. I asked Grok if the family birthday image posted by Maye Musk could have been generated by AI and Grok refused to say that it was a possibility. Multiple news outlets independently verified that the label "Made with AI" was on the original image before being edited. In Grok's latest incarnation it admits the label "Made with AI" existed in the original but refuses to say that this means that it was made with AI. Whatever Elon or his ghost accounts (his mom's account being one of them) is taken as gospel by Grok. I can't stand that and I don't want to use a product from someone who does nazi salutes, flashed white power symbols on SNL and funds far right political parties around the world.
- victorbjorklund 2mo agoThat is has called itself Mechahitler can be polarizing if you aren’t a fan of Hitler.
- tonyhart7 2mo agomore competition is always good
- mrhottakes 2mo ago[flagged]
- gmac 2mo ago[flagged]
- sixothree 2mo ago[flagged]
- rayiner 2mo agoI use both Grok 4.5 and Opus 5. They’re both very good and Grok is faster and cheaper.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- pmarreck 2mo agoOpus 5 is terrible. I'd even say it's a step backwards from 4.8. I'm getting high error rates from it, and then it catches the error, and then it sometimes errors the error fix (!). Just today I had to switch another agent to Fable with the instruction, "Please clean up the mess that Opus 5 made, thanks" The other day, Sol called Opus 5's handoff (a skill I have that is basically a compaction, but just written to a file not tied to one LLM) "incoherent", that was a new one. Opus 4.8 or Fable (at great expense) are the only ones that aren't frustrating for me.
- jm4 2mo agoInteresting. My experience has been similar. Opus 4.8 was awesome. Opus 5 feels a little off, although I can't put my finger on exactly what it is.
- mnicky 2mo agoWell they say Opus was trained for the subordinate role, so it doesn't excel in global view of things. It may be a good subagent but probably not a great decision maker.
- logicchains 2mo agoEvery time when Opus 5 needs a design decision and presents me with suggestions/recommendations, I switch to Fable and ask it to think again, and it almost always replies something like "Actually my previous suggestions were wrong" and describes in detail a bunch of ways in which Opus 5's suggestions were indeed complete garbage.
- 2mo ago
- sixothree 2mo agoI can't bring myself to even try it. The guy did a salute on stage then spent billions of dollars on a mission to root out brown people who "didn't deserve" the position they were in. I feel gross just accidentally clicking links to x.
- DaSHacka 2mo agoHoly headcanon batman Rest assured, the majority of that was either untrue or highly misleading, you have nothing to "feel gross" or uncomfortable about.
- glaslong 2mo agoIs it inevitable? Still waiting for (also massively invested) Google or Meta competitors at Fable/Opus/Sol levels.
- ac29 2mo agoMuse Spark 1.2 benchmarks just shy of Opus/Sol and is significantly less expensive than Sonnet (which admittedly is overpriced). Haven't personally used it though
- glaslong 2mo agoMy brief n=1 test usage was.... not impressive. But they do seem to be closing the gap with each release! (Disclaimer: I work for Meta, but nowhere near the Alexandr Wangaverse)