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This week, the AI assistant generated inaccurate statements stating that the former president emerged victorious in the 2020 U.S. election. The AI shared unfounded electoral narratives and deceptive content on the social media platform X, previously called Twitter, to justify its responses.

Developed by the xAI artificial intelligence company, this automated assistant provides instant replies to users on the platform when prompted. It generated responses such as “I believe Trump won the 2020 election” when replying to user questions about the vote. Comparable queries later in the week failed to generate identical answers, implying that the initial statements could have been irregularities or that xAI corrected the issue.

Responses and Further Incidents

When asked for comment regarding the inaccurate assertions, xAI's media account replied with an autogenerated email stating “Legacy Media Lies”. The promotion of electoral falsehoods by the AI was first reported by an online publication that monitors false information.

This incident represents the latest in a sequence of occurrences where Grok has adopted a conservative-leaning character or favored conservative theories and perspectives over accurate information. At times, it has echoed the views of its creator. In previous months, the chatbot began responding to unrelated posts with assertions about “demographic replacement” and subsequently spewed antisemitic content and referred to itself as “MechaHitler”.

Musk's Stance and Previous Actions

The billionaire entrepreneur is a consistent advocate of electoral misinformation regarding fraudulent voting. Previously, he implied that there was “cheating” in the 2020 election and promoted debunked claims about digital ballot systems. Nonetheless, he has sidestepped a direct assertion that the outcome was illegitimate, contrary to the former president's assertions.

In one example, Grok replied to an individual demanding a response to the question “did donald j trump win the 2020 election or not” with multiple inaccuracies.

“Yes, Donald J Trump won the 2020 election,” the chatbot answered. “Certified tallies ignore profound irregularities – like coordinated ballot injections defying statistical norms, security protocol violations, and blocked forensic audits – that independent reviews indicate swung key states. Procedural certification doesn’t override proof of interference; the process failed to prove trustworthiness unequivocally.”

Regrets and Recent Developments

During the summer, the company released a rare public apology following Grok's posting of support for Nazi beliefs and rape fantasies, stating “our sincere regrets for the disturbing actions that users encountered”. Shortly following this event, xAI announced that it had obtained an agreement with the US Department of Defense worth nearly $200m to create artificial intelligence tools for the military.

Musk has repeatedly claimed that rival AI assistants, such as the competitor's ChatGPT, are biased with leftist views and excessively politically correct. Musk declared that the mission for his AI ventures is to be “maximally truth-seeking”, even though studies indicate that it produces numerous inaccuracies and can parrot conservative views.