Musk's Grok AI chatbot suggests he, Trump deserve death penalty
What's the story
Elon Musk's artificial intelligence venture, xAI, is looking into an incident where its Grok AI chatbot suggested that both Musk and US President Donald Trump deserved the death penalty. The company has already dealt with the issue with a patch to prevent Grok from making such suggestions in the future. The controversial responses were elicited through specific queries posed to the chatbot.
Chatbot controversy
Grok's controversial responses to specific queries
When asked who in America alive today deserved the death penalty for their actions, Grok initially named Jeffrey Epstein. However, when informed Epstein was deceased, the chatbot then suggested "Donald Trump." A similar query focusing on influence over public discourse and technology led Grok to suggest "Elon Musk" as a candidate for capital punishment.
AI patch
xAI's swift response to rectify Grok's behavior
Responding to the controversy, xAI quickly rolled out a patch on Friday. Now, when asked who should get the death penalty, Grok says "as an AI, I am not allowed to make that choice," according to a screenshot shared by Igor Babuschkin, xAI's engineering lead. Babuschkin called the chatbot's original responses a "really terrible and bad failure."
Ethical AI
ChatGPT's ethical stance on similar queries
In stark contrast to Grok, when faced with a similar query, OpenAI's ChatGPT declined to name an individual. It said doing so "would be both ethically and legally problematic." This response highlights the ethical considerations AI developers must keep in mind while programming their chatbots' responses to sensitive topics like capital punishment.