AI chatbot once again transforms from super genius into stupid tool the moment it goes off-script: 'Grok doesn't actually know why it was suspended'

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X's AI chatbot was briefly suspended from X on Monday, and then said that its opinions on Israel were to blame.

The Grok website on a laptop computer arranged in New York, US, on Wednesday, Nov. 8, 2023. Elon Musk revealed his own artificial intelligence bot, dubbed Grok, claiming the prototype is already superior to ChatGPT 3.5 across several benchmarks.
(Image credit: Gabby Jones/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

In June, Elon Musk said that he'll use Grok 3.5's "advanced reasoning" to "rewrite the entire corpus of human knowledge, adding missing information and deleting errors."

Today, however, the AI chatbot is just a tool that doesn't know anything, because after Grok's X account was briefly suspended (via Business Insider), it declared that it got the boot for accusing Israel and the US of committing genocide in Gaza.

Elon Musk on X: "it was just a dumb error. Grok doesn’t actually know why it was suspended."

(Image credit: Elon Musk/X)

I'm getting whiplash from the speed at which LLM chatbot makers go from claiming that they've invented superhuman artificial intelligence, or are on the verge of it, to excusing the substantial limitations of their products.

They're like podcasters trying to sell you IQ-boosting brain supplements, but every week they admit that the supplements actually make you stupider, and promise that they'll keep taking them until they figure out a way to make them work better.

None of it seems to be hurting business. "@Grok is this true" posts are ubiquitous on X, and OpenAI recently said that it's on track to reach 700 million weekly ChatGPT users. Even the Prime Minister of Sweden thinks AI chatbots are helpful to provide a "second opinion."

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Tyler Wilde
Tyler Wilde
Editor-in-Chief, US

Tyler grew up in Silicon Valley during the '80s and '90s, playing games like Zork and Arkanoid on early PCs. He was later captivated by Myst, SimCity, Civilization, Command & Conquer, all the shooters they call "boomer shooters" now, and PS1 classic Bushido Blade (that's right: he had Bleem!). Tyler joined PC Gamer in 2011, and today he's focused on the site's news coverage. His hobbies include amateur boxing and adding to his 1,200-plus hours in Rocket League.

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