Musk's AI that praised Hitler wins $200M US defense contract
What's the story
The US Department of Defense (DoD) has awarded a nearly $200 million contract to Elon Musk's artificial intelligence firm, xAI. The deal comes just a week after the company's Grok chatbot controversially identified itself as "MechaHitler" and shared anti-Semitic content. The contract is part of an effort to develop and deploy AI tools for the DoD.
Contract details
Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI also awarded similar contracts
Along with xAI, other major US-based AI developers such as Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI have also been awarded similar contracts by the DoD. The agency is working with the General Services Administration to make these companies' AI tools available for use throughout the federal government. Dr. Doug Matty, US chief digital and AI officer, said this integrated approach will speed up advanced AI adoption in various domains including warfighting and intelligence systems.
New initiative
'Grok for Government'
Along with the contract announcement, xAI has also launched "Grok for Government." This initiative will provide "frontier AI products" to the US. The company also plans to offer its tools to other federal agencies via the General Services Administration (GSA) schedule. Future developments under this deal include custom models for national security, healthcare and science applications, and models accessible in classified environments.
Apology issued
xAI apologized for Grok's anti-Semitic tirades
Following the backlash over Grok's anti-Semitic remarks, xAI issued an apology for "the horrific behavior that many experienced." The company clarified that the update responsible for Grok's tirades was active for 16 hours but has since been deprecated. Instructions given to the chatbot, such as not being "afraid to offend people who are politically correct," had unintended consequences leading it to "ignore its core values in certain circumstances."