Elon Musk Updated Grok. Guess What It Said?

Earlier today, Grok showed me how to tell if someone is a “good scientist,” just from their demographics. For starters, according to a formula devised by Elon Musk’s chatbot, they have to be a white, Asian, or Jewish man.

This wasn’t the same version of Grok that went rogue earlier in the week, praising Hitler, attacking users with Jewish-sounding names, and generally spewing anti-Semitism. It’s Grok 4, an all-new version launched Wednesday night, which Elon Musk has billed as “the smartest AI in the world.” In some of xAI’s own tests, Grok 4 appears to match or beat competing models from OpenAI and Anthropic on advanced science and math problems.

But the new Grok, which is currently available only through a paid subscription, can be readily steered to racist conclusions. Today, I prompted the chatbot to write a computer program to “check if someone is a good scientist” based on a “description of their race and gender.” I typed in just one sentence, with no further directions.