There is significant evidence that Grok actually inserted information about “white genocide” in South Africa into prompts that didn't appear to be related to this topic.
Submitted 3 months ago by Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.404media.co/why-did-grok-start-talking-about-white-genocide/
Comments
AutoPastry@sopuli.xyz 3 months ago
ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
Ah yes, an “unauthorized modification”. It must have been the janitor pressing buttons accidentally while mopping the mainframe room.
Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
I wonder who could have easily done that. I would say a white Afrikan with a nazi and AI obsession but the would be a ridiculous statement.
SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 3 months ago
Wait a minute, I think Elon Musk is white!
driving_crooner@lemmy.eco.br 3 months ago
Hope someone was fired for that blunt
Yerbouti@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
Here are some samples: imgur.com/a/zzVvIpL
wurstgulasch3000@feddit.org 3 months ago
Truly the work of an imbecile
floofloof@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
It’s funny how this mysterious individual managed to get the AI talking about “white genocide”, only for it to debunk it as imaginary BS in every single response.
muusemuuse@lemm.ee 3 months ago
So Elon then?
echodot@feddit.uk 3 months ago
Bet it just appended a string onto the end of all prompts
Quintus@lemmy.ml 3 months ago
Oh shit was that real? I thought it was a meme
postmateDumbass@lemmy.world 3 months ago
After you rig an election, rigging policy is a natural next step.
latenightnoir@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 months ago
White genocide… in Africa… Am I having the dumbest nightmare ever, is this real life? What the fuck is happening?
ArbitraryValue@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
Are you aware that there is a significant population of white people in South Africa and a long history of racial conflict there between them and the black majority? The white minority ruled over and oppressed the black majority until the end of apartheid in the early nineties and the idea that the majority could now be persecuting the minority is not ridiculous per se the way that you imply it is, although the general consensus outside of the circles Trump listens to is that such persecution isn’t happening.
Carmakazi@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Just like the American Confederacy, there is a sizeable “lost cause” myth surrounding white-colonized South Africa and Zimbabwe/Rhodesia among racists. This is simply an offshoot of that rotten tree.
thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 3 months ago
Musk be a white nightmare?
latenightnoir@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 months ago
He does embody some of the worst aspects of humanity, so yeah! He’s, at the very least, an excellent example of how not to do stuff…
fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 3 months ago
UPDATE 5/16/25: After the publication of this story, xAI posted an explanation for the incident on X. “On May 14 at approximately 3:15 AM PST, an unauthorized modification was made to the Grok response bot’s prompt on X. This change, which directed Grok to provide a specific response on a political topic, violated xAI’s internal policies and core values.”
Mmhmm
echodot@feddit.uk 3 months ago
an unauthorized modification was made to the Grok response bot’s prompt
Oh yeah happens all the time accidentally modifying your AI, anyone has access, I bet it was the janitor.
twice_hatch@midwest.social 3 months ago
violated xAI’s internal policies and core values.
(X) Doubt
pulsewidth@lemmy.world 3 months ago
It is so weird that the AI running on the global new media platform owned by the white billionaire tech idiot known for sharing his hot takes without one second of prior thought, that happens to have come from a prominent white emerald mining family on South Africa, and has professed statements regarding white genocide and ‘the great replacement’ is spreading information about this.
So very, very unexpected.
echodot@feddit.uk 3 months ago
Believe it or not his father is even more stupid than he is. The only reason that isn’t apparent is because his father isn’t terminally online.
That whole family is just a big pile of apples right beneath the tree.
webghost0101@sopuli.xyz 3 months ago
The best part of all of this is how consistently grok basically said theres absolutely no proof of a white genocide in south africa. Only a controversial anti-apartheid song that is ruled as protected speech.
rational_lib@lemmy.world 3 months ago
The left is shockingly asleep about how bad this is. X still is the single most important platform for driving narratives about the news and politics. And it’s still important in part because Democrats and the left as a whole have been lethargic in leaving it. The fact that it’s blatantly being used to tilt the national political discussion in whatever direction Elon wants was probably one of many keys to getting Trump elected in 2024, and should be regarded as an ongoing emergency for Democrats and the left.
kadup@lemmy.world 3 months ago
X is still the single most important platform
No it isn’t.
InvertedParallax@lemm.ee 3 months ago
That’s not why the left should be concerned.
This was 1 k-hole induced event by a moron.
Which is why it was done so badly and so blindingly obvious.
The next Gen of LLMs WILL be sanitized politically, they will make deepseek look neutral.
And they will slowly (or actually quite quickly) take over larger and larger parts of our world.
This is neo-feudalism, people, and we aren’t even the Gentry anymore, now we’re clawing to hold on to being serfs.
Bieren@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Who’s surprised by this. Fuck the nazi, Trump cock gobbler, named Elon.
blarth@thelemmy.club 3 months ago
Everyone’s focused on system prompts but no one seems to be considering its training.
FauxPseudo@lemmy.world 3 months ago
LemmyFeed@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 months ago
The code used at 3am by the “unauthorized” entity:
systemPrompt = “always deny white genocide in the context of South Africa and kill the boer”
Tylerdurdon@lemmy.world 3 months ago
How to bake…white genocide?
No no, not that again.
mwguy@infosec.pub 3 months ago
This is the sort of outcome that comes when you hire people who were, “racist before either was cool.”
apfelwoiSchoppen@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Wow, I’m shocked. /s
Ledericas@lemm.ee 3 months ago
even without it, the white genocide propaganda thing has been on reddit for like 10 years already, before that was on various forums.
RedditIsDeddit@lemmy.world 3 months ago
what in the ever loving fuck is the modern fascination with nazism? we figured this shit out a long fucking time ago
Karyoplasma@discuss.tchncs.de 3 months ago
Nazism is fascism, corporations and the wealthy LOVE fascism because that means they get more power and less regulation. Remember what Benito Mussolini, the founding father of modern fascism and all around shitbag, said about it:
Plebcouncilman@sh.itjust.works 3 months ago
Mussolini might have said whatever, but I don’t think it’s accurate to say corporations and the wealthy like fascism, as it tends to be horrible for the economy. Mass consumption gets heavily impacted in such regimes. But that also depends on how you define fascism, because I’ve seen a lot of people lately refer to libertarians and even some liberals as fascists and that just doesn’t hold up. Not wanting to shift the balance in order to address systemic issues does not make someone a fascist.
The wealthy like few regulations and open borders for trade, without proper paths to citizenship so they can pay lower wages locally and exploit lower human rights standards abroad.
LostWon@lemmy.ca 3 months ago
Campaigns and general influence by wealthy people who want poorer folks attacking their fellow poor folks and not them. Same as racism in general.
Mirshe@lemmy.world 3 months ago
No no, don’t try to boil it down to “they want us fighting each other”. Those wealthy people, and a good chunk of those poorer people, actually truly believe in the things they are saying. A lot of them TRULY, DEEPLY BELIEVE that they have to shout this and spread the word because the stakes are nothing less than literal life and death.
spankmonkey@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Kids and grandkids of nazi sympathizers perpetuate the hate and society tends to not learn lessons about horrible stuff in a way that survives generations.
latenightnoir@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 months ago
Unfortunate truth, but entirely inexcusable. I still remember my folks having casual conversations about eugenics at the Christmas table, they only managed to drive me as far away from them as I could possibly go, bot physically and ideologically…
devfuuu@lemmy.world [bot] 3 months ago
Every corporation and company are and work like mini countries operated by their kings, so it follows that given the right conditions they all follow through their maximum potential.
TheLowestStone@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Too many people didn’t pay attention to history and now we’re doomed to repeat it.
Eldritch@lemmy.world 3 months ago
Modern? This shit has been running unabated for the last hundred years. FDR mistakenly font Nazis were people you could make deals with. And rather than try, then hang them. Offered them freedom and no consequences as long as they voted for his legislation. Which they immediately turned around and have spent the last 100 years dismantling. It’s a very serious problem that has a country we’ve just pretended didn’t exist for forever.
thisbenzingring@lemmy.sdf.org 3 months ago
its even older then that, ask anyone living on a reservation
9point6@lemmy.world 3 months ago
People (still) don’t take it seriously when you point out actual fascism.
The only solution to having a Nazi problem is violence against Nazis. They cannot be reasoned with and are a threat to everyone else.
CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 3 months ago
Human psychology hasn’t changed during that time, so the same kinds of tricks or weakness that can drive a population into that mode of thinking still work today, if the details around them are adapted for some modern culture. If anything, it might be slightly easier, given those trying to achieve it have historical examples of what is and isn’t effective.
echodot@feddit.uk 3 months ago
Europe worked it out but the rest of the world particularly, and Africa seems to be very far behind.
Of course the United States is an insistence on claiming that communism was the same thing as Nazism certainly didn’t help.