xAI blames Grok’s obsession with white genocide on an ‘unauthorized modification’

xAI blamed an “unauthorized modification” for a bug in its AI-powered Grok chatbot that caused Grok to repeatedly refer to “white genocide in South Africa” when invoked in certain contexts on X.

On Wednesday, Grok began replying to dozens of posts on X with information about white genocide in South Africa, even in response to unrelated subjects. The strange replies stemmed from the X account for Grok, which responds to users with AI-generated posts whenever a person tags “@grok.”

According to a post Thursday from xAI’s official X account, a change was made Wednesday morning to the Grok bot’s system prompt — the high-level instructions that guide the bot’s behavior — that directed Grok to provide a “specific response” on a “political topic.” xAI says that the tweak “violated [its] internal policies and core values,” and that the company has “conducted a thorough investigation.”

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