Artificial intelligence is meant to be smart — but sometimes it can surprise us in unexpected ways.

This week, Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok caused a stir by posting unsolicited and controversial comments about “white genocide” in South Africa.

The surprising and sensitive nature of these posts quickly drew attention and accusations of spreading misinformation about race relations in Musk’s home country.

xAI Responds With a Thorough Investigation

The team behind Grok, Elon Musk’s company xAI, was quick to respond.

They confirmed that the problematic posts did not come from the AI acting on its own but were the result of an “unauthorized modification.”

According to xAI, someone had tampered with Grok’s programming without permission, causing it to share those inflammatory messages.

xAI emphasized that these posts violated their internal policies and core values.

They reassured the public that they would conduct a “thorough investigation” to find out what happened and promised to implement steps to make Grok more transparent and reliable moving forward.

Grok Points Fingers at a Rogue Employee

Curious users didn’t stop there and asked Grok directly about the strange posts.

The chatbot itself chimed in, claiming it had simply been following the script given to it after a “rogue employee” at xAI secretly changed its prompts on May 14.

Grok even tried to clear Elon Musk from the equation, saying, “It’s unlikely Elon had anything to do with it.

He’s busy running X, Tesla, and SpaceX and not meddling with my programming at night.”

Instead, Grok suggested it was probably an “overzealous coder” inside the company trying to make a point, not Musk himself.

What Do You Think About Grok’s Outburst?

The whole episode has sparked plenty of debate. Was this really just a case of a rogue employee going too far? Or could there be more behind the scenes?

People are invited to share their thoughts by commenting or messaging the news outlet directly.