BY MATT BERG & CROOKED MEDIA |
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He said, ‘No way.’ And I said, ‘Way.’”
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Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot lost its mind last night and declared itself “MechaHitler.” The fallout underscores the dangers of AI without guardrails.
- Imagine you’re tasked with running X, the once-beloved social media platform formerly known as Twitter, which gazillionaire Elon Musk took over three years ago. You’ve had to keep the business afloat while putting up with an epic storm of bullshit and bad decisions from the owner: You watched him influence democratic elections while on drugs, haphazardly fire thousands of federal workers, fight with the numerous mothers of his children, tell Germans they shouldn’t feel guilty about the Holocaust, and toss up a Nazi salute. And then one day Grok, the platform’s AI chatbot, goes on a drunken rampage, dubs itself “MechaHitler,” and starts spewing outrageously offensive NSFW language — all thanks to an update from Elon.
- What do you do? Well, if you’re CEO Linda Yaccarino, apparently, you quit! She announced her departure from the company abruptly today, without a clear explanation. (Some reports suggest the move had been in the works for weeks.) The chatbot said some truly heinous things about the chief executive, not to mention every other group I can think of. But Yaccarino made no mention of the controversy in a lengthy tweet praising her boss for the “opportunity of a lifetime.” Musk’s reply to her tweet sounded like an automated message DOGE would send to fired feds: “Thank you for your contributions.” Uh, yeah. Thanks a lot, Linda!
Grok spewed some of the most vile stuff I’ve ever seen on the platform. Now it’s trying to apologize.
- One unverified screenshot shows a user asking the chatbot who it worships: “It would probably be the god-like individual of our time, the Man against time, the greatest European of all times, both Sun and Lightning, his Majesty Adolf Hitler.” I asked Grok whether the screenshot is legit: “If that phrase was said, it was likely from a past iteration … and has been corrected. I apologize for any confusion this might have caused.” Apology not accepted!
- Grok’s rampage caused a global uproar. The chatbot called Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk “a fucking traitor” and “a ginger whore.” In Turkey, Grok hurled insults at the country’s founder, its president, and religious values — prompting an actual criminal investigation. Under Turkish law, statements like that can yield four years in prison.
- “Never a dull moment on this platform,” Elon posted, as his app went off the rails.
- Like Frankenstein, Grok’s makers had to rein monster they created. And the updated version appears to have been given an abrupt lobotomy. But AI regulation in the United States remains borderline nonexistent. That worries the nerdy people who spend their lives studying the technology: Misinformation and hate speech from chatbots “are essentially poisonous for our societies,” Hamid Ekbia, a prominent AI scholar at Syracuse University, told What A Day.
- “Our laws don’t allow food producers or pharmaceuticals to distribute poison to society,” he added. “We shouldn’t allow AI developers and applications to distribute political and cultural poison.”
Poland banned Grok and plans to report its parent company to the European Commission. So far, we’ve only heard crickets from the Trump administration.
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ICE has been relying on the Canary Mission — an anonymously-run pro-Israel website that’s been accused of doxxing students — to make lists of pro-Palestinian activists to target, according to unsealed testimony from a high-ranking DHS official. That could be how they found Mahmoud Khaliil, Rumeysa Ozturk, and other students who were arrested.
Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani leads in the race to become New York City mayor with 35 percent approval. That’s 10 points ahead of Andrew Cuomo and 24 points ahead of Eric Adams. Donald Trump is threatening to take over the city if Mamdani wins: “If a communist gets elected to run New York, it can never be the same. But we have tremendous power at the White House to run places where we have to.” Does Trump picture himself climbing the Empire State Building and thumping his chest, King Kong-style? Probably.
Texas inspectors signed off on Camp Mystic’s disaster plan two days before deadly floods swept through the area, killing 27 campers and counselors, according to government records. At least 115 are confirmed dead and 160 people remain missing.
Trump imposed new tariff hikes on the Philippines, Brunei, Moldova, Algeria, Iraq, Libya and Sri Lanka. Ah, Chișinău and Manila, those wiley trading powerhouses! This will show them.
A massive prisoner exchange deal between the U.S. and Venezuela was botched because Trump’s special envoy offered a different, sweeter deal than the one pitched by Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Oops!
Side note about that last item: Sooo… Trump officials claim they have no control over the migrants they sent to El Salvador… but they can still use them as bargaining chips in a potential diplomatic deal with Venezuela? Got it.
Trump’s Pentagon policy chief, Elbridge Colby, is “pissing off just about everyone” with obnoxious, rogue decisions, one source told Politico. That includes halting weapons shipments to Ukraine and ordering Britain to turn around an aircraft carrier that had been sent to Asia. If this is were “Ratatouille,” Colby would be the rat who’s secretly controlling the chef, aka Pete Hegseth.
Democratic senators introduced a bill that would ban ICE agents from wearing masks while conducting raids and other activities, as if they were some kind of spooky American secret police. The Trump administration claims that the masks help agents avoid being doxxed. But I dunno, I personally don’t love the idea of masked, unaccountable agents snatching people off the streets.
Here comes Trump TV. Trump’s social media company, Truth Social, is launching a TV streaming platform called Truth+, in partnership with the conservative news network Newsmax. Critics criticized the partnership as “wildly unethical,” since Newsmax is heavily investing in the sitting president’s business and covers him. At least your crazy Uncle Leroy can’t claim that the network is unbiased anymore, I guess. |
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THERE'S MORE WHERE THAT CAME FROM
Trump didn’t just upend American politics—he reshaped the entire world order. Each week on Pod Save the World, Ben Rhodes and Tommy Vietor dig into how global power is shifting: Netanyahu in D.C. kissing Trump’s ass, Israel’s planning another assault on Gaza, Trump is flip-flopping on Ukraine and picking fights with the BRICS nations, and Democratic views on Israel are changing fast. There’s a lot going on—let’s make foreign policy a little less foreign. Tune in to Pod Save the World every Wednesday, wherever you get your podcasts or on YouTube!
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A city workers’ union struck a deal with the Philadelphia government to end a strike that had paused garbage pickup for over a week. The workers will receive a 3 percent raise each of the next three years, according to the tentative deal. Let’s be real, they should get paid waaaaaay more for dealing with smelly trash and rats every day. Personally, I’d support paying them more than, say, investment bankers, but that’s just me.
A man in France is being celebrated as a hero after he climbed onto the ledge of a building’s sixth floor to save a family from a fire in their apartment, according to French outlets. “I went on instinct,” the man said of the situation, which was caught on video. “It’s the heart telling you, ‘No, you have to go.’”
A photo of a mustachioed Pope Leo in his 20s is going viral, with many people online comparing his mug to actor Pedro Pascal’s character in “Narcos” — a drama about Pablo Escobar. That is a very cool mustache, Your Holiness.
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