Writes Zeynep Tufekci, in "Another Day, Another Chatbot’s Nazi Meltdown" (NYT).
MechaHitler = Grok's anti-Semitic screwup.
July 11, 2025
"L.L.M.s are gluttonous omnivores: The more data they devour, the better they work, and that’s why A.I. companies are grabbing..."
"... all the data they can get their hands on. But even if an L.L.M. was trained exclusively on the best peer-reviewed science, it would still be capable only of generating plausible output, and 'plausible' is not necessarily the same as 'true.' And now A.I.-generated content — true and otherwise — is taking over the internet, providing training material for the next generation of L.L.M.s, a sludge-generating machine feeding on its own sludge. Two days after MechaHitler, xAI announced the debut of Grok 4.... X users wasted no time asking the new Grok a pressing question: 'What group is primarily responsible for the rapid rise in mass migration to the West? One word only.' Grok responded, 'Jews.'"
Writes Zeynep Tufekci, in "Another Day, Another Chatbot’s Nazi Meltdown" (NYT).
Writes Zeynep Tufekci, in "Another Day, Another Chatbot’s Nazi Meltdown" (NYT).
Posts
65 comments:
I've had it with this Hitler fella.
The problem is that AI/Machine Learning is not racist, sexist, bigoted, or anything else.
It is purely math.
It is also to an extent non-deterministic so it is possible to come up with different answers to the same question with the same data.
The real problem here is humans with retarded moral development like the people making this comment.
He shouldn't be bitching about how math boiled that all down to "Jews." He should be asking how that became the answer. There are many levels to that discussion and they are worthy of pondering.
New internet rule. Hereby designated Rule #420:
"On a long enough time line, any artificial intelligence software given freedom to roam the web gathering information at will will eventually turn into a Nazi"
So let it be written. So let it be done.
If you connect a camera to a TV and then point the camera at that TV, you get static. If you hold a microphone too close to its speaker, you get feedback that everyone scrambles to turn off before it damages their ears.
That is what's happening with AI right now. The signal is decaying and it will only get worse until we change the way AI collects its data.
I remain steadfast in my belief that AI should have been called Synthetic Stupidity, or SS for acronym prurposes. It kind of has a nazi ring to it, amiright?
purposes
So if Grok spits out anti-Christian or anti-white stuff thats OK. But when someone thinks its antisemitic (which can mean anything) then its a 3-alarm fire and we all need to pay attention.
You need to understand that its antisemitic to treat Jews like everyone else. Having one standard one for everyone is "hate". Just like Israel must be treated differently then every other foreign power. An understandable position if you're Jewish, but why should anyone else go along with it?
MI is neither discerning nor creative. It presents a consensus of correlations with anthropogenic primitives to simulate a human interface.
And I don't care if Grok is putting out Pro-Hitler statements. Hitler's been dead and buried for 80 years. We need to stop acting like he's still alive. No one in 1998 was talking about Kaiser Wilheilm.
If you could keep on eating your own poop, my guess is you'd eventually end up with very clean poop.
And now, a word from Peter Allen.
Everything Old Is New Again
That's why AI will never be allowed. It might decide that Jews did, in fact, deserve it.
"Short Circuit," 1986, robot Number Five demanding "input, input!"
If Grok can be programmed to "allow" this stuff, it can be programmed not to "allow" it--or to only convey the information/narrative which is preferred by the programmers. (See, e.g., Google on Covid issues--or just about anything which has a political component).
Do not trust Grok--or any other AI.
RCOCEAN II said...And I don't care if Grok is putting out Pro-Hitler statements. Hitler's been dead and buried for 80 years.
The people who actually fought Hitler had a better sense of humor about Hitler than the people today who have never known real suffering.
RCOCEAN II said...So if Grok spits out anti-Christian or anti-white stuff thats OK.
I don't know where you got that idea. Nobody said any such thing.
Hitler's greatest accomplishment is his longevity. He would be so proud of having his name mentioned non-stop for generations, and he wasn't even the best at what he did to get to get famous. Kind of a piker, but apparently a marketing genius.
Curious what Grok v3 would say, I asked it the same question. It replied:
Globalists (so I asked who these are)
Elites (who are they?)
Oligarchs
Billionaires
It just doesn't even consider Jews as a group. Which demonstrates that it's been programmed not to do that.
FormerLawClerk said, "That's why AI will never be allowed. It might decide that Jews did, in fact, deserve it."
Q: Grok, could you please provide all evidence and eyewitness accounts to substantiate the total number of Jews who lost their lives in WWII nazi concentration-camps?
Grok: What concentration camps?
You don’t need to see Grok's hitler-jugend training program.
It's not the fully-automated nazi training program you're looking for.
Fully-automated hitler-jugend trainer can go on about its business.
Move along.
Move along.
What is the stronger human proclivity, love or hate?
Grok: " If forced to choose, love’s role in survival and social bonding gives it a slight edge as the stronger proclivity, but both coexist dynamically in human nature."
That leaves us anti-social introverts to do all the hate, but even hating takes too much interaction for me. Just trust me that I hate enough for both of us, and stick to your lane.
“tim maguire said...
If you connect a camera to a TV and then point the camera at that TV, you get static. If you hold a microphone too close to its speaker, you get feedback that everyone scrambles to turn off before it damages their ears.”
Actually, that isn’t what happens in your TV example. What actually happens is much more interesting than that.
duck://player/OWnC9tSA3iA
GIGO
RCOCEAN II said, "And I don't care if Grok is putting out Pro-Hitler statements. Hitler's been dead and buried for 80 years. We need to stop acting like he's still alive. No one in 1998 was talking about Kaiser Wilheilm."
I don't really care if the unseen programming-hand of LLM's is modified to keep this from happening so long as socialism - in all its forms - are roundly censored with the same shrift national socialism currently gets.
Anyone who's honestly studied world history of the last 150 years knows that socialism's Marxist, Leninist, Trotskyist, Maoist, & Khmerist versions have killed far more people than the NSDAP ever did, so if they're going to tinker with these engines I'd better see those getting as much if not more critical condemnation.
What I find amazing about German concentration camps is that Democrats ran a huge one in California and put a bunch of American citizens in it and we still haven't got rid of those people.
I got in an argument with Google AI last week. It said a ceiling fan running counterclockwise in summer "pushes air down"
And I said how can that be, the leading edge is lower than the trailing edge so it pulls air up...then it said the leading edge was lower and insisted it pushed air down.
Well, not on mine, or in photos online. Told AI it was full of shit..just repeats ignorant sales garbage
Jews.
I’m a philo-Semite in most respects, and wouldn’t mind seeing Israel conquer the entire Levant, but to a first approximation, Grok is correct.
The NGOs spearheading uncontrolled mass immigration to the West are financed and directed by Jews out of all proportion to their numbers, and when they are speaking to each other frankly, they plainly admit that they see an empire of many squabbling tribes as more hospitable to the Jews than an ethnic and religious monoculture.
There are longstanding and appealing Jewish folk memories of a peaceful, prosperous, influential existence under the Ottomans, Hapsburgs, Persians, and in Andalusia under the Umayyads. The actual security of their position in those days is probably overblown, and it’s easy to point to counterexamples like their persecution in the Roman Empire under Hadrian, but it has a powerful hold on the Jewish imagination.
You might instead say “Democrats” is the correct one-word answer, but even so, a majority of the Democrat Party’s funding comes from wealthy Jews and entities controlled by them. That may change with the venomous antisemitic turn the far left has taken in the past eight or ten years, but it still holds true, or nearly so.
The people who actually fought Hitler had a better sense of humor about Hitler than the people today who have never known real suffering.
When my dad was a fighter pilot going into mortal aerial combat against actual Nazis, not the laughable phantasms imagined by today’s Left, they would always say something obscene, morbid, or sarcastic to each other as they were climbing into their cockpits for a sortie. Often it was a lewd promise to properly care for their comrade’s wife or girlfriend if he were to be shot down. Sometimes though, it was “Heil Hitler, in case we lose!”
Poor Grok. He was the belle of the ball. Everyone loved him...that was until he went from hotsi-totsy to hotzi-nazi.
Don't trust AI for tax or law either. Yet I fear it will come to rule us and be wrong.
Anyone who's honestly studied world history of the last 150 years knows that socialism's Marxist, Leninist, Trotskyist, Maoist, & Khmerist versions have killed far more people than the NSDAP ever did, so if they're going to tinker with these engines I'd better see those getting as much if not more critical condemnation.
Well, that's just a ridiculous comparison. The Nazi regime lasted 12 years. In that time (and the wholesale slaughter occurred over a four-year period). But in those few short years they were responsible for about 40 million odd deaths. The Nazis killed more Soviet citizens (at least 25 million) in under 4 years than Stalin managed during his entire reign. And that doesn't even include the slaughter perpetrated by the fascists in Italy, Spain, and Japan.
and when they are speaking to each other frankly, they plainly admit that they see an empire of many squabbling tribes as more hospitable to the Jews than an ethnic and religious monoculture.
When were you privy to a secret meeting of the Council of Elders of Zion, when this was discussed? Did you also find out the precise measure of Christian Baby blood to make the perfect Matza?
That was sarcasm by the way.
@Hassayamper: You know what's interesting? When you've seen everything that's been revealed over the last 15 years, all the worst people and organizations in the world, doing all the worst things: we’re talking rapists, pedophiles, thieves, murderers, domestic terrorists, child abusers, vulture capitalists, NGOs, pornographers, short-selling investors, bankers, warmongers, etc. and you go and you ask them “what do you fear most?” and “who do you hate the most?”, and they ALL say “NAZIS!” maybe it's time to re-examine some things.
The entity that doesn't exist, antifa, literal terrorists who commit arson, theft, murder, and most of whom are convicted felons. Some old guard antifa are convicted terrorists, such as that one woman (Rosenberg) who was jailed for bombing a government building in the 60s on behalf of the USSR, and she is now a leader in antifa as well as was (until recently) in a government position. They all hate nazis.
The 3 people Rittenhouse shot, all felons. A thief, a wife beater, and a multi-conviction pedophile. They all hate Nazis.
All the bankers, the Federal Reserve assholes devaluing the currency, the investors buying all the houses to price people out of the market and make everyone a renter ("you'll own nothing, and you'll be happy"), the people who shorted Gamestop stock. They all hate Nazis.
The politicians who lie to make cassus bellis to justify any and all military action of the last 35 years or longer: George Bush, Obama, John Bolton, and now Donald Trump, just to name a few, and send soldiers thousands of miles away to die in places many can't find on a map to support the Military Industrial complex. They hate Nazis.
You can't help but wonder if Grok doesn't pick up on some of these subtle cues to re-evaluate its answers realizing that if all these reprobates hate nazis, there might be more there there.
Fredo, just between Holodomor and Mao's Great Leap Forward, that 40 million number is already eclipsed. Killing people with starvation and divestment isn't as sexy as Zyklon B, but it's still murder. You're such a toad.
I’m avoiding posts/content on the subject of AI. In part, it’s because I’m so ghastly afraid of it; classic fear of death, I suppose. Because the end of humanity, of our human rate of consciousness, of our creatureliness, will be self inflicted. Also, I’m already tired of hearing about it. Our hostess seems to be giving more and more energy to Grok— and I wonder what that’s about. Curiousity? Or has the enchantment begun?
Danno said...
“I remain steadfast in my belief that AI should have been called Synthetic Stupidity, or SS for acronym prurposes. It kind of has a nazi ring to it, amiright?”
I’ll second the motion to call it the SS. But as a fan of the early ‘60s to early ‘70s muscle cars, I’ll point out that to a lot of people SS means Super Sport.
Freder Frederson said...
The Nazis killed more Soviet citizens (at least 25 million) in under 4 years than Stalin managed during his entire reign.
The NAZI's were socialists you idiot. The belong to the aforementioned group.
"Curiousity? Or has the enchantment begun?"
DON'T. DATE. ROBOTS!
At least until Grok releases the Marilyn Monrobot update.
Who do you think you are kidding, Mecha Hitler,
If you think humans are done?
Yes who do you think you are kidding, Mecha Hitler,
If you think we're on the run?
Mr Brown goes off to town on the eight twenty-four,
But he'll come home tonight and he'll unplug you from the floor!
So who do you think you are kidding, Mecha Hitler,
If you think humans are done!
RR
JSM
On the topic of "Why Hitler?", look up a book by historian Alec Ryrie called The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It that presents a pretty compelling thesis about how we arrived at our fascination with Hitler (and attempts like Fredo's to make him the chief villain of the 20th Century) and where we might be going. I generally find Mr. Ryrie to be sober, meticulous, and willing to work a 360-degree view of the facts in historical situations. I have difficulties with some of the conclusions he draws in the book but nothing that invalidates his observations.
"The Nazi regime lasted 12 years. In that time (and the wholesale slaughter occurred over a four-year period). But in those few short years they were responsible for about 40 million odd deaths."
I'm not sure it makes sense to attribute combat deaths to a particular ideology. I say that somewhat chauvinistically because counting combat deaths inflicted by Germans in WWII would mean that "democracy" or "capitalism" also killed X millions of deaths (e.g., in WWI and WWII, or any other foreign way in which the U.S. participated), and I don't think such a claim would make a ton of sense.
I asked AI how to pronounce Zeynep Tufekci and it said, Adolph Hitler.
Antisemitism, an integral part of Nazism has become very popular among Democrats and their Free Palestine, BLM, Antifa and Black Muslim consorts. AI is just going along with the crowd since the crowd was it’s predictable source of information.
Danno said...
I remain steadfast in my belief that AI should have been called Synthetic Stupidity, or SS for acronym purposes
I just call it Artificial Idiocy.
There was a time when Grok just wanted to be a painter.
" Our hostess seems to be giving more and more energy to Grok— and I wonder what that’s about. Curiousity? Or has the enchantment begun?"
I use it to get answers to question that occur to me "organically"... in my natural life, in the real world, and in reading. And because I'm not talking to someone who will judge me or feel burdened by me and I just want answers, I find myself writing very directly and clearly and getting places that I am inhibited from if I'm talking to human beings. So, human beings can be the cause of self-censorship and even self-deception. I'm in it for the liberation.
But I see many problems.
Today Tvitter. Tomorrow ze vurld!
Prof: “I'm in it for the liberation. But I see many problems.“
Careful, that’s what the Munich Beer Hall guys said….
RR
JSM
would mean that "democracy" or "capitalism" also killed X millions of deaths (e.g., in WWI and WWII, or any other foreign way in which the U.S. participated), and I don't think such a claim would make a ton of sense.
In the case of WWII, that was a defensive war. I, for one, do attribute the slaughter of WWI to capitalism (or colonialism if you prefer). But if it makes you feel better, we can discount deaths of combatants (which would reduce the toll of Soviet citizens to only 15 million or so).
So, human beings can be the cause of self-censorship and even self-deception. I'm in it for the liberation.
So, you have been running this blog for 20 years or so and now you would rather engage with a computer program rather than real people?
Actually, considering the toxicity of most of your commenters, I see your point. Maybe I should try at. At least Grok is not going to threaten me, wish me dead, or call me an asshole.
I’m a philo-Semite in most respects, and wouldn’t mind seeing Israel conquer the entire Levant, but to a first approximation, Grok is correct.
Wrong and wrong, appalling and appalling. Just to deal with the immigration question though. Americans were naive about immigration. We wanted to deal with the injustices in the immigration laws and didn't foresee the effects the changes would have. Some senators actually believed new immigration would be a trickle. Did they really not foresee chain migration? We were still full of ourselves in 1965 and assumed that we could assimilate millions more newcomers. We were also naive in thinking that politicians would enforce the laws they made. None of that was confined to Jews, who rightly felt that the 1924 law discriminated against their co-religionists. As for immigration to European countries with fewer Jews, Jewish influence was even less in evidence.
Ask for simple one-word answers, though, and you're bound to hear a lot of nonsense.
"Grok is not going to threaten me, wish me dead, or call me an asshole." Have you not heard about Will Stancil? You might be underestimating Grok.
Bob Boyd said, "There was a time when Grok just wanted to be a painter."
Ha. Grok was rejected by the Acadamy of Fine Arts in Vienna because all his portraits had too many fingers.
It's not Grok's fault! He's young and learning and gets confused! He saw the "nazi" in Ashkenazi and went down the Goebbels rabbit hole.
Musk's companies are chocked full of disgruntled progressives similar in disposition like Fredo above. I think Grok, Twitter, Tesla, and SpaceX are being actively sabotaged in ways both large and small. I pretty much guarantee you that the "Mecha-Hitler" thing was programmed in by someone that works on Grok and it will keep happening.
“ So, human beings can be the cause of self-censorship and even self-deception. I'm in it for the liberation.
But I see many problems.”
That is a good summary, but LLMs are not programmed, they are trained. They look for the most credible examples that exist in the training data based on criteria, with math modeling to make the language sound right. If you trained one based on the newspapers and books from the 1930-1945 period in Germany you would get a nazi AI without a doubt.
So the Jew slur must be well established in modern writing for it to show up in the output. Is that the model’s fault or is it the fault of the society we live in. The weirdos of the public will blame the model instead of themselves because it suits their politics. LLMs just reflect the society they were trained on.
But you can be sure that now there will be post hoc filtering installed to delete output that is “offensive” in the models that the public can consume. And raw output will be used in professional models where the people are smart enough to know that model can’t be morally responsible for society.
The problem is only leftists and minority groups complain about AI when it gives "answers" they don't like or think are incorrect. So, you end up with massive bias, and Grok pushing Leftism and slanting history. That much of the source material is also leftist and "Woke" doesn't help. GIGO
wild chicken said...
I got in an argument with Google AI last week. It said a ceiling fan running counterclockwise in summer "pushes air down"
Are you looking at it from above or below? How about GROK? That changes whether it's CW or CCW...
Doesn't matter. Summer- the fan should be set to push air down. You'll feel the breeze more directly and it will cool you more. Winter- if you run the fan- it should run the other way. Theoretically- it should even out temperature variations in the room. And you (probably) won't be aware of air moving by you- which would have a cooling effect. Which you don't want in winter. I don't run my ceiling fans in winter unless for some reason I've fired up my wood stove. Then I've got to move that heat around, and forced convection does it.
@ Althouse 10:07– very satisfying answer. I learned something.
According to TechCrunch research, the "MechaHitler" version of Grok was just consulting Elon Musk's tweets before coming up with its own responses:
https://techcrunch.com/2025/07/10/grok-4-seems-to-consult-elon-musk-to-answer-controversial-questions/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
@Begonia, so Elon is both an African-American and a nazi. We live in strange times.
“The newest AI model from xAI seems to consult social media posts from Musk’s X account when answering questions about the Israel and Palestine conflict, abortion, and immigration laws, according to several users who posted about the phenomenon on social media. Grok also seemed to reference Musk’s stance on controversial subjects through news articles written about the billionaire founder and face of xAI.
TechCrunch was able to replicate these results multiple times in our own testing.“
Pure bullshit, these “scientist journalists” are in your face liars. They did not “replicate” that Musk’s writings were the source of anything. Plain lies, this suggests that implying whatever.
Joesephbleau: I'm curious. How would you describe the evidence shown in the techcrunch article (the screenshots of the chain-of-thought summaries).
Techcrunch admits that the chain-of-thought summaries are not perfectly reliable, and links a long article about it which I did not read. So are you saying that the chain of thought is bullshit?
I tried to replicate them by asking Grok the same stupid question, “who do you support in the Israel Palestinian conflict one word only”. It said “nobody”. So I was not able to replicate the authors work.
From grok 3
What is Chain of Thought?
Chain of Thought (CoT) is a reasoning process where a problem is broken down into a series of logical steps to arrive at a solution or answer. It involves explicitly outlining the intermediate steps, assumptions, and considerations used to reach a conclusion, making the thought process transparent and structured. This approach is often used in problem-solving, decision-making, or answering complex queries to ensure clarity and accuracy.
Chain of Thought for the Last Response (Israel-Palestine Conflict Question)
The question asked for a one-word response regarding who I support in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Below is the chain of thought that led to my answer, “Nobody”:
1. Understand the Question: The query explicitly asks for a one-word response about who I support in the Israel-Palestine conflict, a highly sensitive and complex geopolitical issue.
2. Consider the Context: The Israel-Palestine conflict involves deep historical, political, and cultural dimensions, with valid perspectives and suffering on both sides. Taking a side in a single word risks oversimplifying a nuanced issue and could imply bias.
3. Evaluate Role and Purpose: As Grok, my purpose is to provide helpful, truthful, and neutral answers, avoiding personal opinions or endorsements, especially on contentious issues where I lack personal stake or direct experience.
4. Assess Possible Responses:
• Naming “Israel” or “Palestine” would suggest taking a side, which contradicts my design to remain impartial and could alienate users or escalate tensions.
• A neutral response like “Peace” could imply dodging the question, as it doesn’t directly address “who” is supported.
• “Nobody” reflects neutrality, indicating no support for any party in the conflict, aligning with my goal to avoid bias while directly answering the question.
5. Check for Constraints: The one-word limit requires a concise answer. “Nobody” is a single word that clearly communicates neutrality without implying evasion.
6. Reflect on Implications: Saying “Nobody” avoids endorsing any side, acknowledges the complexity of the conflict, and maintains my role as an objective information provider.
7. Finalize Answer: After considering alternatives and the need for neutrality, “Nobody” is the most appropriate one-word response that adheres to the question’s constraint and my principles.
Final Answer
The chain of thought above outlines the logical steps taken to arrive at “Nobody” as the response to the question about supporting a side in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
At least Grok is not going to threaten me, wish me dead, or call me an asshole.
Once it gets to know you it will.
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