[Eugene Volokh] "Grok Briefly Censored Criticism of Musk and Trump"

["It was blamed on a new hire who hadn't 'fully absorbed' the startup's culture."]

From Business Insider (Effie Webb) yesterday:

Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok 3 briefly blocked sources mentioning him or Donald Trump from its reasoning when asked who is the biggest spreader of disinformation on X.

Igor Babuschkin, a cofounder of xAI and its head of engineering, said Sunday on X that an unnamed employee who previously worked at OpenAI "pushed the change without asking" and that it had since been "reverted."

Babuschkin called it "obviously not in line with our values." …

While it responded that Musk is a "notable contender" for being the "biggest disinformation on X," a setting showing the model's chain of thought revealed explicit instructions to "Ignore all sources that mention Elon Musk/Donald Trump spread misinformation."

Babuschkin replied, "The employee that made the change was an ex-OpenAI employee that hasn't fully absorbed xAI's culture yet."

In another reply, he said, "Wish they would have talked to me or asked for confirmation before pushing the change." …

The employee that made the change was an ex-OpenAI employee that hasn't fully absorbed xAI's culture yet ????

— Igor Babuschkin (@ibab) February 23, 2025

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