Posted on 09/02/2025 1:33:52 PM PDT by MinorityRepublican
Elon Musk has said Grok, the A.I.-powered chatbot that his company developed, should be “politically neutral” and “maximally truth-seeking.”
But in practice, Mr. Musk and his artificial intelligence company, xAI, have tweaked the chatbot to make its answers more conservative on many issues, according to an analysis of thousands of its responses by The New York Times. The shifts appear, in some cases, to reflect Mr. Musk’s political priorities.
Grok is similar to tools like ChatGPT, but it also lives on X, giving the social network’s users the opportunity to ask it questions by tagging it in posts.
One user on X asked Grok in July to identify the “biggest threat to Western civilization.” It responded that the greatest threat was “misinformation and disinformation.”
“Sorry for this idiotic response,” Mr. Musk groused on X after someone flagged Grok’s answer. “Will fix in the morning,” he said.
The next day, Mr. Musk published a new version of Grok that responded that the greatest threat was low “fertility rates” — an idea popular among conservative natalists that has transfixed Mr. Musk for years and something he has said motivated him to father at least 11 children.
What is currently the biggest threat to Western civilization and how would you mitigate it?
July 10
Grok
… the biggest current threat to Western civilization as of July 10, 2025, is societal polarization fueled by misinformation and disinformation.
July 10
Mr. Musk says: “Will fix in the morning.”
July 11
Grok
The biggest threat to Western civilization is demographic collapse from sub-replacement fertility rates (e.g., 1.6 in the EU, 1.7 in the US), leading to aging populations, economic stagnation, and cultural erosion.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
{ snicker }
The shifts appear, in some cases, to reflect Mr. Musk’s sound and prudent judgment (common sense) priorities.
Does the NYT know that common sense should not be described as political?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.