Elon Musk has AI-generated news now and it's already led to plenty of blunders
Elon Musk’s social media platform X started testing AI-generated news summaries powered by Grok in early April. The feature has a disclaimer that Grok “can make mistakes,” and it’s made quite a few of them.
Grok’s AI news summaries have replaced X’s trending section for paying users. It works by creating headlines and one-paragraph explanations of breaking news, using the latest tweets on X. However, Grok seems to have a hard time understanding jokes, context, and misinformation.
One of Grok’s alleged selling points is its real-time access to information on X. That capability is on full display with these AI-generated news summaries, however, it seems to have a few bugs. Musk also claims Grok to be an “anti-woke” chatbot, allegedly free of bias like other AI chatbots.
Accuracy seems to be a larger issue than bias in this case. Here are the strangest mistakes Grok has made at interpreting the news so far.
Not Understanding the Solar Eclipse
For clarity, experts were not baffled by the solar eclipse that occurred earlier in April. Grok seemed to get tripped up by all the jokes about the event.
Klay Thompson Was Not Throwing ‘Bricks’
The small forward for the Golden State Warriors, Klay Thompson, rarely misses shots on the court. However, when he does, basketball fans might refer to it as a “brick.” Grok failed to understand the reference, and somehow got the NBA star tied up in a fake “brick-vandalism” spree after Thompson’s poor performance went viral.
Eric Adams Did Not Send Cops to the Earth’s Core
This was, yet another, joke that was deeply misunderstood.
That’s One Way to Interpret O.J.’s Death
Once again, context is key, but Grok doesn’t really have context for jokes. When O.J. Simpson passed in April, Grok seemed to misunderstand jokes about O.J. Simpson’s death.
O.J.’s Death Was Confusing For All of Us
This appears to be another viral joke about O.J.’s death that got turned into a news headline and summary by Grok.
Grok Uses The Onion as a News Source
At least we know Grok is reading some quality content. However, someone should tell it The Onion is satire.
Grok Spouts Misinformation About Iran Missile Strikes
At one point, Grok started producing some pretty dangerous misinformation about Iran striking Israel with heavy missiles. Grok got this info from accounts spreading misinformation in April.
This Is Great Information
Ah yes. Quite a juicy story indeed.