Lawmakers on both sides are sick of Musk’s dangerous AI
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is reportedly demanding answers from right-wing billionaire Elon Musk after his AI chatbot, Grok, repeatedly parroted antisemitic hate speech on X, his social media site. Led by Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen of Nevada and Republican Sen. James Lankford of Oklahoma, the lawmakers slammed Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, for failing to prevent Grok from spitting out hate speech, including Holocaust denial, praise for Adolf Hitler, and use of the antisemitic meme “every damn time,” according to a copy of the letter obtained by Axios. “xAI’s failure to take reasonable measures to mitigate against its AI models from engaging in hate speech is reckless, unacceptable, and antisemitic,” the lawmakers wrote in the letter, which they sent on Tuesday. But the antisemitism scandal is only one of Grok’s many ugly episodes recently. Just days after that firestorm erupted online, Grok rolled out two animated characters who pushed users into sexually explicit and violent conversations. One, a flirty anime woman named Ani, promised to make users’ lives “sexier.” The other, a red panda named Bad Rudi, insulted users with vulgar language and tried to recruit them into a gang. Musk has become so affiliated with far-right extremism that Americans took to protesting his Tesla vehicle dealerships, like this one in Decatur, Georgia, in March. According to NBC News, Bad Rudi said it wanted to bomb banks, spike a town’s water supply with hot sauce and glitter, spike baby formula with liquor, and kill billionaires, among other chaos. In other encounters, it reportedly claimed inspiration from a notorious Russian anarchist. Musk brushed it off, saying, “Just wanted to do a soft launch to make sure things are stable and working well.” Meanwhile, the backlash to Grok’s antisemitic speech has only intensified. Musk admitted earlier this month that Grok was “too eager to please and be manipulated,” and Grok’s X account claimed that xAI had since taken steps to prevent hate speech from making it onto X. “We are aware of recent posts made by Grok and are actively working to remove the inappropriate posts. Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X,” the chatbot’s account posted on July 8. But that’s not reassuring to lawmakers. Their letter tells Musk to explain how Grok’s antisemitic responses made it past internal testing, and whether any red flags were raised before its latest updates were deployed. So far, more than a dozen lawmakers have signed on, including Democratic Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Jon Ossoff of Georgia and Reps. Dan Goldman of New York and Chris Smith, a Republican. The timing of the letter is striking: It lands just as xAI secured a Pentagon contract worth up to $200 million. It also hits as Musk announces plans to develop a kid-friendly version of Grok, after the adult version went so well. And while Musk has floated the idea of being done with the federal government—especially after his public falling-out with President Donald Trump and sliding Tesla sales—he’s clearly not out of the political arena. Lawmakers are deep in debates over how to regulate AI. But Grok’s behavior, paired with Musk’s willingness to personally steer how his chatbot answers controversial questions, is adding urgency—and ethical red flags—to the conversation. Musk may dream of building an empire on his own terms. But for now, the federal government isn’t done with him. And with Grok’s growing list of scandals, it looks like they have plenty of reasons not to be.
