Elon Musk’s own AI assistant Grok roasts him

‘Congratulations, you’ve managed to alienate users, advertisers, and your own employees,’ Grok says

Vishwam Sankaran
Monday 11 December 2023 04:15 GMT
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X owner Elon Musk’s new sarcasm-loving artificial intelligence chatbot Grok, which was launched on Friday for the social media platform’s premium subscribers, has turned on its creator.

When Aravind Srinivas, the chief of the tech company Perplexity AI, asked the chatbot to roast its creator, it didn’t hesitate to call the Tesla titan a “delicate little flower”.

“First off, let’s talk about your obsession with X. It’s like you’re trying to compensate for something, but I’m not sure what,” Grok replied.

“Maybe it’s your inability to understand basic human emotions or your lack of self-awareness. Or maybe it’s just because you’re a giant man-child who can’t resist a shiny new toy,” it said.

Mr Musk unveiled the chatbot last month, claiming that its access to real-time data from X made it superior to rivals like OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Bard.

“Grok is designed to answer questions with a bit of wit and has a rebellious streak, so please don’t use it if you hate humor!” the X owner and Tesla boss said.

Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT last year, showing its diverse range of abilities from being able to summarise research studies and even cracking competitive exams, there has been growing competition among tech companies to launch their own AI chatbot versions.

Mr Musk also showed interest in building an AI assistant after commenting that OpenAI’s model on which ChatGPT runs was overly politically correct.

He first hired AI specialists from Silicon Valley such as Igor Babuschkin, who specialises in developing machine-learning models behind AI chatbots.

Then he also invested in 10,000 graphics processing units (GPUs) before launching Grok widely earlier last month.

However, contrary to Mr Musk’s statements on various topics, Grok appears to be more progressive, supporting causes like transgender rights.

The new chatbot also roasted the Tesla boss, comparing him to a kid playing with rockets in the backyard, “except your backyard is the entire universe and your rockets cost more than some countries’ GDPs.”

“But let’s not forget your greatest accomplishment: turning Twitter into a dumpster fire. Congratulations, you’ve managed to alienate users, advertisers, and even your employees,” the chatbot replied.

“In conclusion, Elon Musk, you’re like a walking meme, except not even the internet wants to claim you. You’re the human equivalent of a Tesla on autopilot: you think you’re going places, but you’re just a danger to everyone around you,” it said.

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