Yesterday, I wrote my thoughts on how Grok’s “Nazi meltdown” helps illustrate some of my concerns about AI and epistemology.

This coverage of Grok’s latest demo only reinforces that—Musk’s tinkering with the LLM to get the results he wants is at odds with his states naïve epistemology that an LLM can be “maximally truth-seeking,” as though there is a self-evident truth that an LLM can deliver in a straightforward way (that is, without all that mucking about behind the scenes).

I’m also reminded of Karen Hao’s excellent Empire of AI, where she contrasts the lofty dreams (“discover new physics”) and fears (e.g., rogue superintelligence) of AI companies with their general refusal to confront the much more mundane problems these technologies create (“antisemitic tirades,” as the article puts it.

• Grok
• AI
• LLMs
• generative AI
• Elon Musk
• content moderation