Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, says an “unauthorized modification” led its Grok chatbot to post unsolicited claims on social media about the persecution and “genocide” of white people in South Africa.

Grok's developer has said an "unauthorized modification" took place after users reported the chatbot founded by Elon Musk was serving up mentions of "white genocide" in South Africa without prompting, when asked about unrelated topics. xAI, which developed the bot for integration on X, has launched an inquiry.

If you have a question for Grok today, there's a chance X's AI chatbot replied by talking about "white genocide" in South Africa, a controversial talking point in far-right circles.

Much like its creator, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok was preoccupied with South African racial politics on social media this week, posting unsolicited claims about the persecution and “genocide” of white people.

Elon Musk's X platform has faced backlash after its AI chatbot kept bringing up "white genocide."Sam Altman joined in and made fun of Grok, perhaps extending his long-running feud with the X owner.Musk has promoted the "white genocide" conspiracy theory,

As is now well known, large language models produce many factual answers, but also some that are completely made up, and it’s very difficult to discern one from the other using most of the

Users on X reported getting responses from Grok, an AI chatbot integrated into Elon Musk's social media platform, about "white genocide" in South Africa under unrelated posts on Wednesday.

What happened if you asked Grok to speak in the style of Star Wars character Jar-Jar Binks? It’ll do that, of course, but then it’ll inject some garbage about South Africa and genocide as well.

South Africa's Sibanye-Stillwater SSWJ.J said on Friday that it was working to bring to the surface 260 miners, who were stuck underground at one of its gold mines after the hoist system used to access the shaft was damaged in an accident. Alice Rizzo reports.