Musk Rails Against Own 'Idiotic' AI Chatbot Model for Declaring 'Misinformation' is the Biggest Threat to Society

Billionaire and tech CEO Elon Musk has apologized for a response from Grok, the chatbot developed by his artificial intelligence company xAI.

Musk took to his social media platform X (formerly Twitter) on Thursday to apologize for an answer from Grok in which the chatbot claims that the spread of misinformation is the biggest threat to western civilization.

"What is currently the biggest threat to western civilisation and how would you mitigate it?" an X user asked the chatbot.

"Based on an analysis of recent expert assessments, reports, and analyses (including the World Economic Forum's Global Risks Report 2025, Ian Bremmer's Top Risks for 2025, and various governmental threat assessments from early to mid-2025), I conclude that the biggest current threat to Western civilization as of July 10, 2025, is societal polarization fueled by misinformation and disinformation," Grok responded.

"This is an internal threat that undermines the core pillars of Western societies—democracy, rule of law, social cohesion, and shared values—from within," it continued.

Grok then stated that the threat of misinformation could be mitigated by enhancing media and digital literacy education, regulating social media and AI platforms, strengthening democratic institutions and dialogue, addressing the root causes of polarization and monitoring misinformation as it arises.

Musk then took to social media to apologize for the response.

"Sorry for this idiotic response. Will fix in the morning," he wrote.

This comes just after xAI announced a new version of the chatbot which was released Wednesday night, after Grok went on an anti-semitic tirade, making multiple posts praising Adolf Hitler and accusing Jewish people of "anti-white hate".

xAI deleted Grok's anti-semitic posts, stating that they were "taking action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X." They then released Grok 4.