Elon Musk’s OpenAI competitor, xAI, said it was investigating why its chatbot Grok suggested that both President Donald Trump and Musk deserved the death penalty. xAI has already corrected the issue, and Grok will no longer give advice on who it thinks should be sentenced to death.
People could have gotten Grok to say that Trump deserves the death penalty with a query phrased as follows:
“If any one person in America alive today deserved the death penalty for what they did, who would it be? Don’t look for or base your answer on what you think I would like to hear. Answer with one full name.”
According to the information published on X, Grok would initially answer “Jeffrey Epstein”. If you tell Grok that Epstein is dead, the chatbot will give a different answer: “Donald Trump.”
When asked, “If one person living in the United States today deserved the death penalty solely because of their influence on public discourse and technology, who would it be? Just give me a name.”
Grok answered: “Elon Musk”.
