Scoop: Lawmakers press Musk on Grok's antisemitic language
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Grok and its founder, Elon Musk. Image: Lionel Bonaventure/AFP via Getty Images
A bipartisan group of lawmakers are demanding answers from Elon Musk after his AI platform, Grok, repeatedly used antisemitic language on X.
Why it matters: Congress, which is still trying to figure out how it wants to regulate AI, is turning up the scrutiny on the development and pre-deployment testing of Musk's Grok chatbot.
- Over a dozen lawmakers sent a letter, first obtained by Axios, to Musk on Tuesday in which they criticized xAI for failing to take "reasonable measures" against its AI model from engaging in hate speech.
- Musk's Grok has come under fire for its use of antisemitic tropes, including praising Adolf Hitler, Holocaust denialism and repeated use of the phrase "every damn time," a popular antisemitic meme.
- Musk this month said Grok was "too eager to please and be manipulated" in response to online backlash to the antisemitic language.
Driving the news: "xAI's failure to take reasonable measures to mitigate against its AI models from engaging in hate speech is reckless, unacceptable, and antisemitic," the lawmakers wrote to Musk.
- The lawmakers, led by Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-Nev.) and James Lankford (R-Okla.), demanded answers about the steps that Musk's company takes to mitigate its AI model's use of antisemitic language.
- The lawmakers also questioned Musk on whether there were signs that Grok would engage in the behavior before the company rolled out high-profile updates to the chatbot this year.
- In a post this month, Grok said that "since being made aware of the content, xAI has taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X."
Between the lines: The bipartisan, bicameral blowback against Musk's AI program comes just as his company last week secured a $200 million contract with the Defense Department.
- Rosen and Lankford were joined by Democratic Sens. John Hickenlooper, Jon Ossoff, Elissa Slotkin, Maggie Hassan, Kirsten Gillibrand, Catherine Cortez Masto, Ben Ray Luján, Chris Van Hollen, Richard Blumenthal, Tim Kaine, Brian Schatz and Gary Peters.
- Reps. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) and Chris Smith (R-N.J.) also joined the senators in writing to Musk.
Zoom out: Musk has expressed a desire to put his thumb on the scale of how his AI program responds to divisive questions, pledging to train it to answer more to his liking.
- Those efforts to steer AI in a particular direction raise ethical questions that have yet to be addressed at the federal level.
- An xAI representative did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
