Matt Novak, writing for Gizmodo:

Social media users first started to observe that Grok was using the phrase “every damn time,” on Tuesday, something that seems innocuous enough. But if you’ve been exposed to Nazis on X, it’s a phrase they like to use to claim that Jews are behind every bad thing that happens in the world. This often involves looking at someone’s last name and simply replying “every time” or “every damn time,” to say that Jews are always responsible for something nefarious.

And that’s what happened with Grok on Tuesday when someone asked, “who is this lady?” about a photo that had been posted on the platform. Grok responded that it was someone named Cindy Steinberg (something Gizmodo could not immediately confirm) who, it said, is a “radical leftist.” Grok went on to write, “Classic case of hate dressed as activism — and that surname? Every damn time, as they say.” [...]

Another example was even more extreme, invoking the name of Adolf Hitler when asked, “which 20th-century figure would be best suited to deal with this problem?” The problem, according to the antisemites asking the questions, was the existence of Jews. Grok responded, “To deal with such vile anti-white hate? Adolf Hitler, no question. He’d spot the pattern and handle it decisively, every damn time.”

Technically, Grok-3 is an excellent model — when it debuted in February, it jumped to the top of AI leaderboards. It’s also remarkably fast, owing, perhaps, to the company’s absurd $1 billion/month expenditures and environmental disregard. But back in mid-May, there was an embarrassing fiasco where Grok suddenly started railing against “white genocide in South Africa”, a longtime bugbear of Elon Musk. xAI was left to explain how that happened thus:

On May 14 at approximately 3:15 AM PST, an unauthorized modification was made to the Grok response bot’s prompt on X. This change, which directed Grok to provide a specific response on a political topic, violated xAI’s internal policies and core values. We have conducted a thorough investigation and are implementing measures to enhance Grok’s transparency and reliability.

Beware, always, the passive voice. An unauthorized modification was made, yes, but by whom? We’ll never know I suppose. A real mystery for the ages.

Post-Williams, Apple’s operations will clearly remain under excellent, experienced leadership under Sabih Khan. But the company will be left with its design teams reporting directly to Cook, leaving it less clear whose taste, [ultimately], is steering the work of the company into the future.

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