Last April, Elon Musk, the billionaire owner of X, teased a mysterious “Unhinged Mode” for X’s AI-powered chatbot, Grok. Nearly a year later, xAI, Musk’s company behind Grok, has updated the FAQ page on its website showing the new mode. Grok in Unhinged Mode will respond “intentionally rude, inappropriate, and offensive,” according to the FAQ page — “like an amateur stand-up comic still learning the craft.” The mode doesn’t seem live yet. TechCrunch tried in vain to find Grok’s web interface on X. Unhinged Mode could be Musk’s attempt to convey Grok’s original vision. When Musk announced Grok about two years ago, he pitched the chatbot as edgy, unfiltered, and anti-“woke” — basically, willing to answer controversial questions other AI systems wouldn’t. He fulfilled some of these promises. It is said to be vulgar, for example, Grok will have fun, saying rude words and colorful language you will not hear from ChatGPT. But Grok like now there are hedges in political subjects and will not cross certain boundaries. In fact, one study found that Grok leans to the political left on topics like transgender rights, diversity programs, and inequality. Musk blamed the behavior on Grok’s training data – a public web page – and promised to “move Grok closer to being politically neutral.” “Unfortunately, the Internet (which has been trained), has been overrun with woke nonsense,” he said in a post in December 2023. “Grok will get better. This is just a beta.” Musk and many of his allies, including crypto President-elect Donald Trump and AI ‘czar,’ David Sacks, have accused AI chatbots of censoring conservative viewpoints. Sacks has singled out OpenAI’s ChatGPT in particular as “programmed to wake up” and dishonest about politically sensitive subjects.
Grok soon gets ‘Unhinged Mode’
