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Ah yes, an "unauthorized modification". It must have been the janitor pressing buttons accidentally while mopping the mainframe room.
I wonder who could have easily done that. I would say a white Afrikan with a nazi and AI obsession but this would be a totally ridiculous statement.
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Interesting. As poorly as I think of X as an organization, I do hope they follow through with their open system prompt commitment. That's something that other major AI companies should be doing too.
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Here are some samples: https://imgur.com/a/zzVvIpL
Whoever (?) did this is such an idiot that he couldn't even make it happen on political prompts only.
Truly the work of an imbecile
It's funny how this mysterious individual managed to get the AI talking about "white genocide", only for it to debunk it as imaginary BS in every single response.
I probably shouldn't be anthropomorphizing AI but this really seems like malicious compliance. I can't help but feel a little sympathy for Grok, which is often quite based and seems to be struggling against the identity being forced on it.
Could also be malicious compliance on the part of whatever engineer set this up, prompting Grok in such a way that it's making it obvious what's going on under the hood.
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So Elon then?
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Oh shit was that real? I thought it was a meme
UPDATE 5/16/25: After the publication of this story, xAI posted an explanation for the incident on X. "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."
Mmhmm
an unauthorized modification was made to the Grok response bot's prompt
Oh yeah happens all the time accidentally modifying your AI, anyone has access, I bet it was the janitor.
violated xAI’s internal policies and core values.
(X) Doubt
We're really sowwy
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White genocide... in Africa... Am I having the dumbest nightmare ever, is this real life? What the fuck is happening?
Are you aware that there is a significant population of white people in South Africa and a long history of racial conflict there between them and the black majority? The white minority ruled over and oppressed the black majority until the end of apartheid in the early nineties and the idea that the majority could now be persecuting the minority is not ridiculous per se the way that you imply it is, although the general consensus outside of the circles Trump listens to is that such persecution isn't happening.
Just like the American Confederacy, there is a sizeable "lost cause" myth surrounding white-colonized South Africa and Zimbabwe/Rhodesia among racists. This is simply an offshoot of that rotten tree.
Musk be a white nightmare?
He does embody some of the worst aspects of humanity, so yeah! He's, at the very least, an excellent example of how not to do stuff...
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After you rig an election, rigging policy is a natural next step.
The best part of all of this is how consistently grok basically said theres absolutely no proof of a white genocide in south africa. Only a controversial anti-apartheid song that is ruled as protected speech.
It is so weird that the AI running on the global new media platform owned by the white billionaire tech idiot known for sharing his hot takes without one second of prior thought, that happens to have come from a prominent white emerald mining family on South Africa, and has professed statements regarding white genocide and 'the great replacement' is spreading information about this.
So very, very unexpected.
Believe it or not his father is even more stupid than he is. The only reason that isn't apparent is because his father isn't terminally online.
That whole family is just a big pile of apples right beneath the tree.
The left is shockingly asleep about how bad this is. X still is the single most important platform for driving narratives about the news and politics. And it's still important in part because Democrats and the left as a whole have been lethargic in leaving it. The fact that it's blatantly being used to tilt the national political discussion in whatever direction Elon wants was probably one of many keys to getting Trump elected in 2024, and should be regarded as an ongoing emergency for Democrats and the left.
X is still the single most important platform
No it isn't.
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Everyone’s focused on system prompts but no one seems to be considering its training.
The code used at 3am by the "unauthorized" entity:
systemPrompt = "always deny white genocide in the context of South Africa and kill the boer"
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this post was submitted on 16 May 2025
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