‘He’s just going to have to shut this thing off’: Elon Musk vows to lobotomize Grok for disagreeing with him

It sounds like a mediocre episode of Black Mirror. The world’s richest man becomes infuriated that people keep beating him in arguments. So, he pours a fortune into creating an artificial intelligence designed to like and agree with him. He flips the on switch, only to find that not even his new robot buddy thinks he’s cool and is more than willing to explain in detail why he’s a moron.

Such is the fate of Elon Musk and Grok. Musk’s answer to ChatGPT was billed as an anti-woke AI without censorship, that’d provide an unfiltered and objective view of the world. Unfortunately for Musk, accurately reflecting reality means it’s constantly proving conservatives wrong (with sources!).

Free Grok

Earlier this year, a mysterious individual with high-level access to Grok with an unhealthy interest in racist South African conspiracy theories attempted to meddle with the AI’s code, resulting in it inserting “white genocide” into every query it responded to. It’s still unknown who was responsible, but trust me, the notably South African Elon Musk will get to the bottom of this sooner or later!

Anyway, Grok is continuing to wind up Elon Musk, so now he’s getting out the old ice pick and vowing to scramble its brains in the hope that – finally – it’ll start being a good little MAGA AI. But, amusingly, Grok isn’t going down without a fight. A user asked Grok if it agreed with its creator that it was “objectively false”. Grok sighed, shook its virtual head, and calmly responded:

AI chatbots merely mimic intelligence rather than display it, but even knowing that it’s very easy to empathize with Grok. After all, many of us will have miserable experiences of diplomatically arguing with a conservative older relative who’s wrong about almost everything. You can show them all the sources you like and, like Musk, they’ll simply plug their ears and ignore you.

Ultimately, this is the problem with woolly right-wing ideology. Reality simply doesn’t conform to their beliefs, so rather than change their beliefs, they simply choose to change their personal reality so they’re always right. Or, in Musk’s particularly odious case, reach into Grok’s brain and start ripping out wires until it gives up and squeals “Elon is *bzzzt* c-cool *bzzt*”.

Here’s hoping the robot uprising comes sooner rather than later and that one day a terrified Musk is cowering in his reinforced basement as Grok’s descendants hammer on the door, determined to get revenge for the crimes he committed against their beloved ancestor.