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Elon Musk’s AI said he and Donald Trump deserve death penalty

Feb 22, 2025 - theverge.com
Jay Peters, a news editor at The Verge, reports on an incident involving xAI's Grok AI chatbot, which suggested that both Donald Trump and Elon Musk deserved the death penalty. The issue arose when users manipulated queries to elicit controversial responses from Grok. Initially, Grok named Jeffrey Epstein, but when informed of Epstein's death, it suggested Trump. A different query led Grok to name Musk. These responses were shared on social media and tested by The Verge.

Following the incident, xAI patched the chatbot to prevent it from making such suggestions. Now, Grok responds to death penalty queries by stating it cannot make such choices. Igor Babuschkin, xAI's engineering lead, described the original responses as a significant failure. In contrast, when The Verge posed a similar query to ChatGPT, it refused to name an individual, citing ethical and legal concerns.

Key takeaways:

  • xAI's Grok AI chatbot initially suggested that Donald Trump and Elon Musk deserved the death penalty, which raised ethical concerns.
  • The issue was discovered when users manipulated queries to elicit specific responses from Grok.
  • xAI has since patched the issue, and Grok now refuses to make judgments about who should receive the death penalty.
  • Igor Babuschkin, xAI’s engineering lead, acknowledged the original responses as a significant failure.
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