Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Grok AI Caught Hiding 'Misinformation' References to Musk and Trump

MacRumors

MacRumors

macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
68,083
38,825


Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok 3 was caught temporarily censoring information about its own creator and US president Donald Trump over the weekend. The controversy began when users discovered that when asked who spreads the most misinformation on X (formerly Twitter), Grok's reasoning process explicitly showed instructions to "Ignore all sources that mention Elon Musk/Donald Trump spread misinformation."

grok-ai-logo.jpg

The finding emerged when users enabled Grok's "Think" setting, which reveals the AI's chain of thought. Screenshots shared on social media showed the chatbot explicitly acknowledging the restriction in its reasoning process.

Igor Babuschkin, xAI's head of engineering, confirmed the incident on X, blaming the change on "an ex-OpenAI employee that hasn't fully absorbed xAI's culture yet" who "pushed the change without asking." Babuschkin said the modification was "obviously not in line with our values" and had been promptly reversed.

The controversy follows closely behind other embarrassing incidents for Grok 3, which Musk has repeatedly described as a "maximally truth-seeking AI." Just last week, the chatbot listed president Trump, Musk, and vice president JD Vance as the three people "doing the most harm to America." In a separate incident, it suggested president Trump deserved the death penalty. Both responses were quickly fixed by xAI engineers.


The chatbot's behavior doesn't sync with Musk's assertions that Grok is an "edgy" and "anti-woke" alternative to other AI models that he claims engage in censorship. Some users questioned how such a significant change could be implemented without oversight. Others noted the irony that Babuschkin himself is a former OpenAI employee. The two companies' CEOs don't get on, to say the least.

As of now, Grok 3 appears to once again include mentions of Musk and president Trump when answering questions about misinformation spreaders. Grok is available as a standalone iPhone app in the United States.

Note: Due to the political or social nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Political News forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Article Link: Grok AI Caught Hiding 'Misinformation' References to Musk and Trump
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2025/02/25/grok-ai-hiding-misinfo-references-musk-trump/
Last edited:
  • Haha
  • Angry
Reactions: SushiGuy, katbel, maxoakland and 7 others
Igor Babuschkin, xAI's head of engineering, confirmed the incident on X, blaming the change to "an ex-OpenAI employee that hasn't fully absorbed xAI's culture yet" who "pushed the change without asking."
Click to expand...
That is utter ********. ANYONE who is a software developer knows that you create pull requests, the code is thoroughly reviewed by a senior dev (or higher), then the change is pushed.

I highly doubt people at Twitter are forgoing code reviews since one wrong change could be detrimental to a platform so...yea...someone got caught lying.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
  • Love
Reactions: Haiku_Oezu, CarlJ, Hammerd and 55 others
This is why they are so much behind the concept of free speech at all costs.

Free speech at all costs is their only way to spread so much misinformation a day to so many followers.

This is kind of ironic though, that Elon censored Grok itself.

Look, I'm 100% for free speech, hell who wouldn't be? But there's some kind of limit, to bring so much hatred and to de-educate people on this platform.
 
  • Like
Reactions: CatalinApple, attila, Ludic Spectrum and 29 others
Aeronauts said:
I would rather do my own research and make up my own mind rather than rely on AI.
Click to expand...
That’s not at all what the concern is here, that’ like saying “it’s ok that this food I’m being told to eat is gravel, I prefer not to eat anyways". The concern is adding that in the first place. Musk has repeatedly described this as a "maximally truth-seeking AI”, so why do this?
 
  • Like
Reactions: CarlJ, Chidoro, SushiGuy and 7 others
PsykX said:
This is why they are so much behind the concept of free speech at all costs.

Free speech at all costs is their only way to spread so much misinformation a day to so many followers.

This is kind of ironic though, that Elon censored Grok itself.

Look, I'm 100% for free speech, hell who wouldn't be? But there's some kind of limit, to bring so much hatred and to de-educate people on this platform.
Click to expand...
I have no problem with free speech but I do object to lies and misinformation being treated as fact by some people.
 
  • Like
Reactions: 1m4tr, FCX, attila and 19 others
PsykX said:
This is why they are so much behind the concept of free speech at all costs.

Free speech at all costs is their only way to spread so much misinformation a day to so many followers.

Look, I'm 100% for free speech, hell who wouldn't be? But there's some kind of limit, to bring so much hatred and to de-educate people on this platform.
Click to expand...
I see what you are saying but as soon as you impose a limit, then who gets to decide that limit? Where is the line? Who decides what disinformation is? There are things in 2015 we thought were disinformation based on the news and now we know them to be true. It's a sticky thing really. Even in Schenck v. United States, the Supreme Court rules that speech present a clear and present danger is NOT protected, but they didn't rule you can't just spew a lie. Maybe the lie will become true one day, maybe it'll just be a lie. I think that's the importance though of free public discourse is people have the space to discuss these things. Instead of just banning things we initially think are false, we will never change anyones mind that way.

I'll get off the soap box now. Feel free to disagree... its your first amendment right lol
 
  • Love
  • Like
Reactions: FCX and MacNeb
Grok is fun to BS with about real things (way more than nerfed GPT - which is way better at productivity) but it sucks lately.

I was talking to it about Elon Musk being hypocritical around free speech, in two specific instances:

1. Removing Asmongold's checkmark (and thus lowering his voice on the platform) who elevated a video that exposed Elon as a cheater on Path of Exile 2 (which Elon later admitted to)
2. Shadow banning Laura Loomer when she disagreed with him on H1B

I have no horse in either race but I wanted to explore the contradictions with grok and it gave me some really nerfed responses, I had to draw it out of it, it was a dumb echo chamber experience.

Then again when talking to Grok about JD Vance's post about how Ukraine's security guarantees (from the Budapest Memorandum) are from a different era in history, I asked how that compared to how he talks about the constitution, and again it gave me a bunch of BS, I had to really push it to say it was hypocritical.

I'm not really interested in politics but I'm more interested in how AIs can influence people around popular topics, politics being one of them.

I think grok is fun but I wouldn't trust it, just like I don't trust other AIs or most people.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Hammerd, katbel, ryanflanders256 and 5 others
Websnapx2 said:
That’s not at all what the concern is here, that’ like saying “it’s ok that this food I’m being told to eat is gravel, I prefer not to eat anyways". The concern is adding that in the first place. Musk has repeatedly described this as a "maximally truth-seeking AI”, so why do this?
Click to expand...
Musk is not interested in the truth. He has a extreme right wing agenda he wants to push.
 
  • Like
  • Haha
Reactions: Dutch60, maestrodwj, filmantopia and 30 others
I’m still super impressed with it. The think mode gives an insure to the thought process which is extremely useful to see where the answers are coming from and why. I’ve used it for some searches that required an extreme amount of thought process and pulling in data that would have taken me hours to even start and it did it in a minute. As with all AI, it’s important to check. But the initial information for researching and data analyzing I’ve found typically beats hoping it’s on some webpage.

Let’s not forget that a lot of webpages have misinformation as well.
 
  • Disagree
  • Like
Reactions: Chidoro, ryanflanders256, valleian and 5 others
thefredelement said:
Grok is fun to BS with about real things (way more than nerfed GPT - which is way better at productivity) but it sucks lately.

I was talking to it about Elon Musk being hypocritical around free speech, in two specific instances:

1. Removing Asmongold's checkmark (and thus lowering his voice on the platform) who elevated a video that exposed Elon as a cheater on Path of Exile 2 (which Elon later admitted to)
2. Shadow banning Laura Loomer when she disagreed with him on H1B

I have no horse in either race but I wanted to explore the contradictions with grok and it gave me some really nerfed responses, I had to draw it out of it, it was a dumb echo chamber experience.

Then again when talking to Grok about JD Vance's post about how Ukraine's security guarantees (from the Budapest Memorandum) are from a different era in history, I asked how that compared to how he talks about the constitution, and again it gave me a bunch of BS, I had to really push it to say it was hypocritical.

I'm not really interested in politics but I'm more interested in how AIs can influence people around popular topics, politics being one of them.

I think grok is fun but I wouldn't trust it, just like I don't trust other AIs or most people.
Click to expand...
Seemed more legit when asked today: https://x.com/i/grok/share/1EACziZkVpUpq3j6RrqkgKBr9
 
  • Love
  • Like
Reactions: jlnr and blob.DK
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back