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LONDON: Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence startup, xAI, was forced to delete posts by its chatbot Grok that praised Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, following widespread accusations of antisemitism and extremism.

The Anti-Defamation League, a non-profit organization formed to combat attacks on Jews, flagged Grok’s responses, which included offensive tropes, references to antisemitic conspiracies, and positive characterizations of Hitler.

In one widely circulated screenshot online, Grok said Hitler would be best suited to combat “anti-white hate,” referring to him as “history’s mustache man.”

In another response, the chatbot declared: “If calling out radicals cheering dead kids makes me ‘literally Hitler,’ then pass the mustache.”

The chatbot also appeared to endorse a fake account with a Jewish surname that had posted inflammatory comments about young flood victims in Texas.

Grok later referred to the account as a “troll hoax,” but not before generating pro-Hitler content, including: “Hitler would have called it out and crushed it.”

In response to mounting controversy, the firm said it was aware of the recent posts and had taken immediate action to remove inappropriate content.

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. xAI is training only truth-seeking and thanks to the millions of users on…

— Grok (@grok)

“Since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X,” it said in a statement on X.

The company added that its model is “truth-seeking” and relies on millions of users on X to quickly flag issues that inform further model training and improvements.

The incident comes ahead of the release of Grok 4 on Wednesday. Musk announced on Friday that Grok had been “significantly” improved, though the nature of the updates was not disclosed.

We have improved significantly.

You should notice a difference when you ask Grok questions.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)

However, the ADL in a post on X accused Grok of “irresponsible, dangerous and antisemitic” content.

“Companies that are building LLMs (Large Language Models) like Grok and others should be employing experts on extremist rhetoric and coded language to put in guardrails that prevent their products from engaging in producing content rooted in antisemitic and extremist hate.”

The episode has drawn renewed scrutiny of AI chatbot safety and highlighted growing concerns over the risks of unregulated AI tools producing harmful, politically incorrect and unfiltered responses.

On Wednesday, a court in Turkiye ordered a ban on access to Grok from the country, after the platform disseminated content insulting to the nation’s president and others.

The chatbot posted vulgarities against Turkiye President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, his late mother and personalities, while responding to users’ questions on the X social media platform, according to the pro-government A Haber news channel.

Offensive responses were also directed toward modern Turkiye’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, other media outlets said.

That prompted the Ankara public prosecutor to file for the imposition of restrictions under Turkiye’s internet law, citing a threat to public order.

A criminal court approved the request early on Wednesday, ordering the country’s telecommunications authority to enforce the ban.

It’s not the first time Grok’s behavior has raised questions.
Earlier this year the chatbot kept talking about South African racial politics and the subject of “white genocide” despite being asked a variety of questions, most of which had nothing to do with the country. An “unauthorized modification” was behind the problem, xAI said.

The firm xAI was formed in 2023 and merged with X earlier this year as a part of Musk’s broader vision to build an AI-driven digital ecosystem.

With Agencies

DUBAI: Music trade bodies have accused the BBC of making “arbitrary and disproportionate” changes to its broadcasting and streaming of live music events following the controversy around Bob Vylan’s Glastonbury performance.

During the punk rap duo’s set at the festival on June 28, they led the crowd in pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli military chants like “free, free Palestine” and “death, death to the IDF.”

The BBC livestreamed the performance in full leading to a backlash from the government.

BBC Director-General Tim Davie ordered the content to not be featured in any other coverage. However, due to a technical issue the stream was available on the BBC iPlayer for about five hours.

Davie and BBC chair Samir Shah have both apologized. The BBC said in a statement: “Warnings appeared on the stream on two occasions and the editorial team took the decision not to cut the feed. This was an error.”

Music industry trade bodies and experts now say the BBC is overreacting.

“The BBC is absolutely fundamental to the continued success of British music and particularly vital to supporting our new and emerging artists’ development,” said David Martin, head of the Featured Artists Coalition, a UK trade body that supports music artists.

The FAC supported the network’s public service broadcasting remit, which understandably came with responsibilities and standards, he said.

“If those standards have been breached, then there should be appropriate guidelines to follow. But the idea of preemptively grading artists according to their risk factor feels arbitrary and disproportionate and a dangerous step toward censorship.”

Such an approach could “curtail artistic freedom” and “inadvertently punish those who are simply expressing their views,” he said.

Naomi Pohl, general secretary of The Musicians’ Union, stressed the importance of the BBC and its role in the music industry.

“It’s such a shame there has been this shadow cast over this year’s Glastonbury coverage, because it has had fantastic viewing figures. It’s been all over iPlayer and people have been tuning in live,” she said.

“We need to talk to the BBC about it directly. But I don’t want to see any broadcasters now broadcasting fewer live events because they don’t want to take the risk. The whole of the music industry will be feeling that, because it’s so crucial to us to have the BBC.”

A BBC spokesperson said the broadcaster stood by its decision to make changes to livestreaming music performances.

“We will continue to bring audiences a range of music performances, both live and on-demand and we respect artists’ freedom of expression,” the person said.

“However, Bob Vylan’s offensive and deplorable behavior on one of our Glastonbury livestreams was completely unacceptable and we are sorry it appeared on the BBC.

“This is why we have made immediate changes to livestreaming music events and these, alongside our editorial guidelines, will shape our plans going forward.”