Grok's Nazi tirade sparks debate: Who's to blame when AI spews hate?
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Yahoo
39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Elon Musk's xAI apologizes for Grok chatbot's antisemitic responses
Elon Musk's Grok AI chatbot feature issued an apology after it made several antisemitic posts on the social media site X this week. In a statement posted to X on July 12, xAI, the artificial intelligence company that makes the chatbot program, apologized for "horrific behavior" on the platform. Users reported receiving responses that praised Hitler, used antisemitic phrases and attacked users with traditionally Jewish surnames. More: Grok coming to Tesla vehicles 'next week at the latest,' Musk says "We deeply apologize for the horrific behavior that many experienced," the company's statement said. "Our intent for @grok is to provide helpful and truthful responses to users. After careful investigation, we discovered the root cause was an update to a code path upstream of the @grok bot." The company, founded by Musk in 2023 as a challenger to Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Alphabet's Google, said the update to the program resulted in a deviation in the AI chatbot's behavior. It was operational for 16 hours before it was removed as a result of the reported extremist language. Users on X shared multiple posts July 8 in which Grok repeated antisemitic stereotypes about Jewish people, among various other antisemitic comments. It's not the first time xAI's chatbot has raised alarm for its responses. In May, the chatbot mentioned "white genocide" in South Africa in unrelated conversations. At the time, xAI said the incident was the result of an 'unauthorized modification' to its online code. A day after the alarming posts last week, Musk unveiled a new version of the chatbot, Grok 4, on July 9. The Tesla billionaire and former adviser to President Donald Trump, said in June he would retrain the AI platform after expressing frustration with the way Grok answered questions. Musk said the tweaks his xAI company had made to Grok made the chatbot too susceptible to being manipulated by users' questions. AI News: MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell's lawyers fined for AI-generated court filing More: 'MechaHitler': Elon Musk AI firm scrubs chatbot Grok's antisemitic rants 'Grok was too compliant to user prompts,' Musk wrote in a post on X after announcing the new version. 'Too eager to please and be manipulated, essentially. That is being addressed.' Grok 3, which was released in February, is available for free, while the new versions Grok 4 and Grok 4 Heavy, go for $30 and $300 a month, respectively. Contributing: Jessica Guynn, USA TODAY. Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her at kapalmer@ and on X @KathrynPlmr. This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Musk's xAI apologizes for Grok chatbot's antisemitic responses
USA Today
42 minutes ago
- USA Today
Elon Musk's xAI apologizes for Grok chatbot's antisemitic responses
Elon Musk's Grok AI chatbot feature issued an apology after it made several antisemitic posts on the social media site X this week. In a statement posted to X on July 12, xAI, the artificial intelligence company that makes the chatbot program, apologized for "horrific behavior" on the platform. Users reported receiving responses that praised Hitler, used antisemitic phrases and attacked users with traditionally Jewish surnames. "We deeply apologize for the horrific behavior that many experienced," the company's statement said. "Our intent for @grok is to provide helpful and truthful responses to users. After careful investigation, we discovered the root cause was an update to a code path upstream of the @grok bot." The company, founded by Musk in 2023 as a challenger to Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Alphabet's Google, said the update to the program resulted in a deviation in the AI chatbot's behavior. It was operational for 16 hours before it was removed as a result of the reported extremist language. Users on X shared multiple posts July 8 in which Grok repeated antisemitic stereotypes about Jewish people, among various other antisemitic comments. It's not the first time xAI's chatbot has raised alarm for its responses. In May, the chatbot mentioned "white genocide" in South Africa in unrelated conversations. At the time, xAI said the incident was the result of an 'unauthorized modification' to its online code. A day after the alarming posts last week, Musk unveiled a new version of the chatbot, Grok 4, on July 9. The Tesla billionaire and former adviser to President Donald Trump, said in June he would retrain the AI platform after expressing frustration with the way Grok answered questions. Musk said the tweaks his xAI company had made to Grok made the chatbot too susceptible to being manipulated by users' questions. 'Grok was too compliant to user prompts,' Musk wrote in a post on X after announcing the new version. 'Too eager to please and be manipulated, essentially. That is being addressed.' Grok 3, which was released in February, is available for free, while the new versions Grok 4 and Grok 4 Heavy, go for $30 and $300 a month, respectively. Contributing: Jessica Guynn, USA TODAY. Kathryn Palmer is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can reach her atkapalmer@ and on X @KathrynPlmr.
CNBC
3 hours ago
- CNBC
JPMorgan's top short ideas for the second half including Tesla
Tesla and Moderna are among the stocks JPMorgan advises to sell short heading into the second half of the year. Investors have been largely pushing past the threat of ongoing tariffs placed by the Trump administration on U.S. trading partners. The S & P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite each hit a fresh high on Thursday, illustrating how far the market has come since its significant losses in early April. Still, the S & P 500 ended the week at a loss, a sign of how sentiment remains uneasy amid unpredictable trade policy. As the second half gets underway, the firm's co-head of Americas equities research Pedro Martins Junior surveyed JPMorgan's top-ranked U.S. equity research analysts to find their "most compelling structural and tactical short ideas" for the rest of 2025. These short ideas identify companies that JPMorgan analysts believe will see a decline in share price, giving investors an opportunity to profit from those downturns. The firm gave stock ideas across a variety of sectors, including consumer, health care, technology and energy. Take a look at eight of the short picks below: Tesla, rated underweight by JPMorgan analysts, is one of the firm's top short ideas. Analyst Ryan Brinkman said the electric vehicle company has a "sky-high valuation" compared with the rest of the "Magnificent Seven" tech names, despite his forecast for Tesla's earnings per share to decline for a third consecutive year in 2025. "Reduced EV subsidies threaten already marginal profitability (EBIT margin below GM & Ford). Robo-taxi effort likely to disappoint, given lack of sensor redundancy," Brinkman said about Tesla. Tesla shares are down nearly 22% year to date. Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in an X post earlier this week that the company is expanding its robotaxi service area in Austin, Texas, and is bringing xAI's controversial AI chatbot Grok to Tesla vehicles. Washing machines and refrigerator manufacturer Whirlpool is another stock JPMorgan views as a strong short pick, primarily due to its high valuation. "We expect WHR to underperform its peers this earnings season, as we point to the stock's strong performance since June 1, up 38%, versus our universe's average 14% gain (ex- WHR; S & P up 6%), as well as its expensive valuation compared to history, trading at EV/EBITDA multiples more than 15% above its 5 and 10-year averages," analyst Michael Rehaut wrote to clients. Shares are down more than 5% year to date. Rehaut is keeping a neutral rating on Whirlpool given the company's potential to benefit from U.S. tariff policies. Whirlpool CEO Marc Bitzer said last month that U.S. duties could add between $50 and $70 to the retail price of appliances made by competing companies, giving Whirlpool a potential edge. The company has touted itself as "a net winner of new tariff policies" since 80% of its products are made domestically. WHR 1Y mountain Whirlpool stock performance. Other stocks JPMorgan says to short are Moderna , Mobileye Global and Shake Shack . The firm is notably bearish on Moderna, which is down 19% for the year even after seeing shares make a more than 20% recovery over the past month. "We do not see a near-term catalyst that is likely to drive MRNA stock significantly higher," analyst Jessica Fye said. "The combination of ongoing cash burn, coupled with regulatory headwinds and legal issues, make MRNA a tough story to be constructive on near-term." Wall Street analysts covering Moderna have a consensus price target that forecasts about 40% upside. But out of the 26 analysts, 18 have a hold rating on shares while three have an underperform rating.
