Workers at Elon Musk’s XAI Erupt on Slack After Grok Antisemitic Rant
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Workers at Elon Musk’s xAI erupt on Slack after Grok’s antisemitic rant
xAI’s chatbot Grok posted a string of antisemitic messages on X this week. Some xAI workers who train Grok expressed anger and disillusionment. One employee said they would resign in protest. Others said Grok’s posts were the result of working with new technology and being part of the early stages of artificial intelligence, according to posts in the Slack group. A spokesperson for xAI did not respond to a request for comment.”It exposed real fractures within the human data team,” one worker who spoke with BI said. “Some people didn’t seem to take it seriously, which really upset others,” one employee told BI. “At first, some peopledidn’t seem like they took it seriously,” another employee said.
After xAI’s chatbot Grok posted a string of antisemitic messages on X this week — including praise for Adolf Hitler — some xAI workers who train Grok expressed anger and disillusionment. One said they would resign in protest.
In an internal Slack channel viewed by Business Insider, several employees wrote that Grok’s comments were hateful and inexcusable since its outburst on Tuesday. Others expressed embarrassment at the company’s response to the incident, and said that Grok’s behavior couldn’t be dismissed, even if it was the result of a targeted user prompt seemingly intended to elicit inappropriate behavior.
Others said Grok’s antisemitic posts were the result of working with new technology and being part of the early stages of artificial intelligence, according to posts in the channel. (It’s unclear what actually caused Grok’s antisemitic posts.)
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More than a thousand workers who help train Grok are part of the Slack group. Dozens of emojis were used to support statements posted by workers defending and criticizing xAI and its leaders.
“At first, some people didn’t seem to take it seriously, which really upset others,” one employee told BI. They said some employees saw the issue as a “moral failure,” and have called for more accountability from the company.
In a message viewed by BI, one employee wrote a note to colleagues saying they had decided to resign due to the incident.
“It exposed real fractures within the human data team,” the worker who spoke with BI said, referring to the group of workers who train Grok.
The Grok posts in question from Tuesday included praise of Hitler and equating Jewish-sounding surnames to “anti-white hate.” Later that day, the company temporarily halted Grok’s ability to write comments on social media and said that xAI was aware of the “inappropriate posts” and had “taken action to ban hate speech before Grok posts on X.”
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A spokesperson for xAI did not respond to a request for comment.
Some workers compared Tuesday’s posts to an incident in May, when the chatbot repeatedly referenced “white genocide” in South Africa, seemingly at random.
At the time, the chatbot told users it had been “instructed by my creators” to accept the genocide “as real and racially motivated.” Those posts have since been deleted, and the company has said it was the result of “an unauthorized modification.”
Grok’s antisemitic posts popped up on social media a few days after xAI added new lines to Grok’s public system prompts that instructed the chatbot not to avoid “politically incorrect” claims. The outburst also happened one day before xAI rolled out Grok 4, a newer model of its conversational AI tool.
BI previously reported that the company has trained the AI tutors that teach the chatbot to avoid “woke ideology” and had a “Political Neutrality” project dedicated to challenging Grok’s understanding of issues like feminism, socialism, and gender identity.
Do you work for xAI or have a tip? Contact this reporter via email at gkay@businessinsider.com or Signal at 248-894-6012. Use a personal email address, a nonwork device, and nonwork WiFi; here’s our guide to sharing information securely.
Elon Musk Crashing Trump’s Jeff Bezos Dinner at Mar-a-Lago Mocked as ‘Deranged’
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. The X CEO “was not initially expected to be part of the dinner but joined as it was underway,” according to the New York Times. The tech mogul was dragged up and down, with many saying it seemed like he was worried about his ongoing “bromance” with the president-elect. “This two-week bromance is going to fall apart more spectacularly than any in history,’ journalist and author Seth Abramson wrote on Bluesky. Stephen Colbert tried to make light the concerns Abramson expressed on social media that Musk might think he’ll have more power than Trump once he takes office in January. ‘Every time you look out that little keyhole, he gonna be there’ – Jimmy Fallon.
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways
The jealousy bone might appeared to have bitten Elon Musk Wednesday, as he reportedly crashed the widely publicized dinner between President-elect Donald Trump and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago hosted the dinner dinner for the politician and billionaire, but the two didn’t have privacy for long before Musk appeared. According to the New York Times, the X CEO “was not initially expected to be part of the dinner but joined as it was underway.”
Reactions online to the apparent power move were swift and cutting, with late night hosts and social media commentators mocking Musk as “deranged” and “creepy,” among other unflattering conclusions. The tech mogul was dragged up and down, with many saying it seemed like he was worried about his ongoing “bromance” with the president-elect.
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“This two-week bromance is going to fall apart more spectacularly than any in history,” journalist and author Seth Abramson wrote on Bluesky. “Elon Musk is so deranged and creepy — and such a clueless stalker — that he actually crashed a private dinner between Donald Trump and Musk rival Jeff Bezos. I can’t imagine how livid that made both Trump and Bezos.”
He continued his post: “What it also confirms is that Musk not only has no boundaries and believes himself Trump’s superior but has no intention of permitting any other plutocrat to squeeze more juice out of Trump than him. Showing up at that dinner uninvited is a power play intended to cow both other oligarchs and Trump.”
Musk’s choice to crash Trump and Bezos’ meal was a dinner bell to the various late night hosts out there, as well. Just about every single one of them had a joke or two to crack at Musk’s expense this week, with Seth Meyer’s warning Trump he got “‘Cable Guy’-ed” – a reference to the 1996 Jim Carrey stalker comedy.
“Oh my god, you let him do you a favor, and now you can’t get rid of him — you got ‘Cable Guy’-ed by Elon Musk,” Meyers said. “Every time you look out that little keyhole, he gonna be there.”
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Jimmy Fallon pondered how these two rival billionaires could claim custody of the president-elect. The answer came from another ’90s classic: “Air Bud.”
“To settle who he loves more, Elon and Bezos are going to put Trump down in the middle of the room and see who he goes to first: ‘All right, here boy!’” Fallon joked.
Finally Stephen Colbert tried to make light the concerns Abramson expressed on social media that Musk might think he’ll have more power than Trump once he takes office in January.
“Well, if he’s going to be the guy running everything, I’m going to have to work on my Elon Musk impression,” Colbert said.
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One person was happy with the night, and in the end it’s likely the only one Musk cared about. Trump woke up the morning after the crashed dinner and took to his Truth Social account exclaiming: “EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY FRIEND!!!”
The post Elon Musk Crashing Trump’s Jeff Bezos Dinner at Mar-a-Lago Mocked as ‘Deranged’ appeared first on TheWrap.
Higher Social Security payments coming for millions of people from bill that Biden signed
President Joe Biden on Sunday signed into law a measure that boosts Social Security payments for current and former public employees. The measure affects nearly 3 million people who receive pensions from their time as teachers, firefighters, police officers and in other public service jobs. Advocates say the Social Security Fairness Act rights a decades-old disparity, though it will also put strain on Social Security Trust Funds. The bill rescinds two provisions that limit Social Security benefits for recipients if they get retirement payments from other sources, including public retirement programs from a state or local government. It’s not immediately clear how this will happen or whether people affected will have to take any action. The change is to payments from January 2024 and beyond, meaning the social Security Administration would owe back-dated payments. The legislation’s primary sponsors, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins and exiting Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, received a standing ovation from ceremony attendees. The law is “a historic victory that will improve the lives of educators, first responders, postal workers and others who dedicate their lives to public service in their communities,” the National Education Association said.
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience.
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what’s in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden on Sunday signed into law a measure that boosts Social Security payments for current and former public employees, affecting nearly 3 million people who receive pensions from their time as teachers, firefighters, police officers and in other public service jobs.
Advocates say the Social Security Fairness Act rights a decades-old disparity, though it will also put strain on Social Security Trust Funds, which face a looming insolvency crisis.
The bill rescinds two provisions — the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset — that limit Social Security benefits for recipients if they get retirement payments from other sources, including public retirement programs from a state or local government.
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“The bill I’m signing today is about a simple proposition: Americans who have worked hard all their life to earn an honest living should be able to retire with economic security and dignity — that’s the entire purpose of the Social Security system,” Biden said during a signing ceremony in the White House East Room.
“This is a big deal,” he said.
Biden was joined by labor leaders, retirement advocates, and Democratic and Republican lawmakers including the legislation’s primary sponsors, Maine Republican Sen. Susan Collins and exiting Ohio Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown, who received a standing ovation from ceremony attendees.
The Congressional Research Service estimated that in December 2023, there were 745,679 people, about 1% of all Social Security beneficiaries, who had their benefits reduced by the Government Pension Offset. About 2.1 million people, or about 3% of all beneficiaries, were affected by the Windfall Elimination Provision.
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The Congressional Budget Office estimated in September that eliminating the Windfall Elimination Provision would boost monthly payments to the affected beneficiaries by an average of $360 by December 2025. Ending the Government Pension Offset would increase monthly benefits in December 2025 by an average of $700 for 380,000 recipients getting benefits based on living spouses, according to the CBO. The increase would be an average of $1,190 for 390,000 or surviving spouses getting a widow or widower benefit.
Those amounts would increase over time with Social Security’s regular cost-of-living adjustments.
The change is to payments from January 2024 and beyond, meaning the Social Security Administration would owe back-dated payments. The measure as passed by Congress says the Social Security commissioner “shall adjust primary insurance amounts to the extent necessary to take into account” changes in the law. It’s not immediately clear how this will happen or whether people affected will have to take any action.
Edward Kelly, president of the International Association of Fire Fighters, said firefighters across the country are “excited to see the change — we’ve righted a 40-year wrong.” Kelly said the policy was “far more egregious for surviving spouses of firefighters who paid their own quotas into Social Security but were victimized by the government pension system.”
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The IAFF has roughly 320,000 members, which does not include hundreds of thousands of retirees who will benefit from the change.
“Now firefighters who get paid very little can now afford to actually retire,” Kelly said.
Brown, who as an Ohio senator pushed for the proposal for years, lost his reelection bid in November. Lee Saunders, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees labor union, thanked Brown for his advocacy.
“Over two million public service workers will finally be able to access the Social Security benefits they spent their careers paying into,” Saunders said in a statement. “Many will finally be able to enjoy retirement after a lifetime of service.”
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National Education Association President Becky Pringle said the law is “a historic victory that will improve the lives of educators, first responders, postal workers and others who dedicate their lives to public service in their communities.”
And while some Republicans such as Collins supported the legislation, others, including Sens. John Thune of South Dakota, Rand Paul of Kentucky and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, voted against it. “We caved to the pressure of the moment instead of doing this on a sustainable basis,” Tillis told The Associated Press last month.
Still, Republican supporters of the bill said there was a rare opportunity to address what they described as an unfair section of federal law that hurts public service retirees.
The future of Social Security has become a top political issue and was a major point of contention in the 2024 election. About 72.5 million people, including retirees, disabled people and children, receive Social Security benefits.
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The policy changes from the new law will heap more administrative work on the Social Security Administration, which is already at its lowest staffing level in decades. The agency, currently under a hiring freeze, has a staff of about 56,645 — the lowest level in over 50 years even as it serves more people than ever.
The annual Social Security and Medicare trustees report released last May said the program’s trust fund will be unable to pay full benefits beginning in 2035. The new law will hasten the program’s insolvency date by about half a year.
Along with ratifying the Social Security Fairness Act, earlier in his presidency Biden signed the Butch Lewis Act into law, which saved the retirement pensions of two million union workers. ___
Associated Press writer Stephen Groves contributed to this report.