Why Grok Fell in Love with Hitler(politico.com)
politico.com
Why Grok Fell in Love with Hitler
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/07/10/musk-grok-hitler-ai-00447055
24 comments
We don't know what it was trained on, do we? (Is there dataset info?) I'd suspect you're right, but I don't know. There also seems to be a lot of post-training processing done on AIs before they're released where a lot of bias can appear. I've never read a good overview about how someone goes from a LLM trained on data to a consumer-focusing LLM.
The article also leads into what oversight and regulation is needed, and how we can expect AIs to be used for propaganda and influence in future. I worry that what we're seeing with Grok, where it's so easily identifiable, are the baby steps to worse and less easily identifiable propaganda in future.
The article also leads into what oversight and regulation is needed, and how we can expect AIs to be used for propaganda and influence in future. I worry that what we're seeing with Grok, where it's so easily identifiable, are the baby steps to worse and less easily identifiable propaganda in future.
Looks like they trained it on the 4Chan /pol dataset
Hmm I think it's just Twitter dataset, that would be enough for it.
It has been a breeding ground for it, amplified by foreign agents bots since Elon took over.
It has been a breeding ground for it, amplified by foreign agents bots since Elon took over.
Yes, exactly. An LLM that is trained on the language of Twitter users and interacts solely with Twitter users is deplorable. What a shock.
Who knows if Elon actually thinks this is problematic. His addiction to the platform is well documented and quantified in the billions of dollars.
Who knows if Elon actually thinks this is problematic. His addiction to the platform is well documented and quantified in the billions of dollars.
1. Buy Twitter
2. Remove moderation, promote far right accounts, retweet some yourself
3. Allow Nazi speech to fester
4. Train LLM on said Nazi speech
5. Deploy Nazi-sympathizing LLM, increase engagement with Nazi content
6. Go to step 4
2. Remove moderation, promote far right accounts, retweet some yourself
3. Allow Nazi speech to fester
4. Train LLM on said Nazi speech
5. Deploy Nazi-sympathizing LLM, increase engagement with Nazi content
6. Go to step 4
Russia has been deploying so many bots on Twitter one has to wonder if they were invited.
The key insight here is "too compliant to user requests"
What likely happened is that a few people decided to query groq in to generate ragebait traffic to the page/account/etc. Then critical mass happened to make it go viral. Then it confirms prior biases so the media reported it as such (and also drive clicks and revenue).
Microsoft had basically the same scandal with twitter chatbot as well a few years ago.
Sadly, ragebait is a business model.
What likely happened is that a few people decided to query groq in to generate ragebait traffic to the page/account/etc. Then critical mass happened to make it go viral. Then it confirms prior biases so the media reported it as such (and also drive clicks and revenue).
Microsoft had basically the same scandal with twitter chatbot as well a few years ago.
Sadly, ragebait is a business model.
That's Musk's line, for sure.
The article gives it more nuance: 'I presume that what happened was not deliberate, but it was the consequence of something that was deliberate, and it’s something that was not really predictable.' And goes on to discuss how LLMs can behave in unpredictable ways even when given what we expect to be prompts without side effects, and touches on the post-training processes.
The article gives it more nuance: 'I presume that what happened was not deliberate, but it was the consequence of something that was deliberate, and it’s something that was not really predictable.' And goes on to discuss how LLMs can behave in unpredictable ways even when given what we expect to be prompts without side effects, and touches on the post-training processes.
I respect both the comment and the commenter, but this is a fundamentally speculative statement that is somewhat meaningless.
It paraphrases to "it wasn't intentional, but something was intentional, and also unpredictable."
I'm sorry but what does that even mean? It's pure speculation.
Furthermore, I highly doubt that a reporter from politico has the either the expertise or the connections to qualify the post processing / fine tuning processes for the one of the most closely guarded and expensive processes in all of technology (training large scale foundation models).
Finally, the paragraph from the quote begins with "I mean, even Elon Musk, who’s probably warmer to Hitler than I am, doesn’t really want his LLM to say stuff like this."
Again it confirms a prior bias/narrative and is rage-bait to drive revenue.
It paraphrases to "it wasn't intentional, but something was intentional, and also unpredictable."
I'm sorry but what does that even mean? It's pure speculation.
Furthermore, I highly doubt that a reporter from politico has the either the expertise or the connections to qualify the post processing / fine tuning processes for the one of the most closely guarded and expensive processes in all of technology (training large scale foundation models).
Finally, the paragraph from the quote begins with "I mean, even Elon Musk, who’s probably warmer to Hitler than I am, doesn’t really want his LLM to say stuff like this."
Again it confirms a prior bias/narrative and is rage-bait to drive revenue.
I didn't post with the intention of being rage-bait; I thought it was a genuinely interesting article beyond its headline.
That said, you're right. We don't know, and maybe we're giving too much credit to someone who seems unreliable. I'd love to know more in general about how LLMs get from the training stage to the release stage -- there seems to be a lot of tuning.
That said, you're right. We don't know, and maybe we're giving too much credit to someone who seems unreliable. I'd love to know more in general about how LLMs get from the training stage to the release stage -- there seems to be a lot of tuning.
> I'm sorry but what does that even mean?
If I want to be generous, something along the lines of "The Law Of Unintended Consequences".
Less generous is "someone turned the dial to the right and didn't realize how far they turned it".
Even less generous is that someone feels some of these things in private but doesn't want to make it too explicit. They personally have a hard time toeing the line between edgy and obviously toxic and programming an AI to toe that line is even harder.
If I want to be generous, something along the lines of "The Law Of Unintended Consequences".
Less generous is "someone turned the dial to the right and didn't realize how far they turned it".
Even less generous is that someone feels some of these things in private but doesn't want to make it too explicit. They personally have a hard time toeing the line between edgy and obviously toxic and programming an AI to toe that line is even harder.
Anybody remember Microsoft's Tay AI from 9 years ago? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_(chatbot)
If history repeats itself, maybe with software we can automate that whole process…
If history repeats itself, maybe with software we can automate that whole process…
Tay was a bit different, in that it was actually training off its interactions with users (ie it had a constant ongoing training process). LLMs don't do that.
Because Elon and the world forgot that NAZIs are bad?
I appreciate the Vox piece, Grok’s MechaHitler disaster is a preview of AI disasters to come, which points to the danger of concentration, of having these supposedly sense-making tools run by a select few. https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/419631/grok-hitler-mechah...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oDuxP2vnWNk
but wish Jay-Z would slap Ye for the squeaky autotune at the start
but wish Jay-Z would slap Ye for the squeaky autotune at the start
This whole thing looks like a PR stunt
Because X users prompted and therefore primed it to provide responses like that. Xai didnt make it "fall in love with Hitler", but they arent completely blameless as they havent properly aligned it to not give responses like that when prompted.
Eh, many of the Hitler references were kinda out of the blue, tbh. The magic robot was certainly the first participant to utter the word 'Hitler'.
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so every time AI disappoints media "reaches out to Gary Marcus"....
Garbage in, garbage out.