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XAI's Grok suddenly can't stop bringing up "white genocide" in South Africa

arstechnica.com

11–20 of 82 posts

Re: XAI's Grok suddenly can't stop bringing up "white genocide" in South Africa

#11
post #7

It'll be worth it if the backlash is what brings about an end to "genocide inflation". Seriously, just because you don't like something, or even if it's really bad, doesn't make it genocide.

It makes me morbidly curious what other 'fake genocides' you see as part of this epidemic of mislabeling ...

Re: XAI's Grok suddenly can't stop bringing up "white genocide" in South Africa

#12
post #5

As a white South African who got out in 2007, while there's obviously no "white genocide", it's still pretty much the crappiest place to be as a tech / programming guy (or just anyone who likes having electricity). Pretoria (where Musk is from) in particular was terrible, Cape Town less so. Best decision I ever made.

There’s a pretty big gap between “they’re killing everyone of my race” and “dang, electricity’s out again.” Are you saying it’s crappy to be white in South Africa even if you’re not a poor farmer?

The prospects are terrible, as being a "pale male" is the worst sort of employee to be. Businesses are given extra money if they have high BBEEE ratings; i.e. mostly-racial quotas. Loads of money siphoned off, and not just in the usual high-corruption way via the state, but e.g. if you want to procure something you go through a black-owned procurement firm that doesn't do anything except BBEEE-wash it and charge a premium.

It's a bit like what happened in Zimbabwe that devastated that country 20 years ago when all the white farmers were kicked out, but in slower motion.

Re: XAI's Grok suddenly can't stop bringing up "white genocide" in South Africa

#13

> maximally truth-seeking AI, even if that truth is sometimes at odds with what is politically correct It is certainly and undoubtedly a big coincidence that his happens to the chatbot of a white South African just when the topic is in the news again due to Trump's granting refugee status to some white South African farmers.

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Re: XAI's Grok suddenly can't stop bringing up "white genocide" in South Africa

#15

> maximally truth-seeking AI, even if that truth is sometimes at odds with what is politically correct It is certainly and undoubtedly a big coincidence that his happens to the chatbot of a white South African just when the topic is in the news again due to Trump's granting refugee status to some white South African farmers.

[flagged]

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Re: XAI's Grok suddenly can't stop bringing up "white genocide" in South Africa

#16
post #7

It'll be worth it if the backlash is what brings about an end to "genocide inflation". Seriously, just because you don't like something, or even if it's really bad, doesn't make it genocide.

It makes me morbidly curious what other 'fake genocides' you see as part of this epidemic of mislabeling ...

You don't want to open the hatch on that one, my friend, you won't like what you'll see in the zeitgeist right now.

Re: XAI's Grok suddenly can't stop bringing up "white genocide" in South Africa

#17

> maximally truth-seeking AI, even if that truth is sometimes at odds with what is politically correct It is certainly and undoubtedly a big coincidence that his happens to the chatbot of a white South African just when the topic is in the news again due to Trump's granting refugee status to some white South African farmers.

What I am wondering about is - while Musk is as unsubtle as ever, and I guess this is a system prompt instruction - is there something like that (in more subtle ways) going on in the other big models? I don't mean big agenda-pushing things like Musk, but what keeps e.g. Meta Inc. from training Llama to be ever so slightly more friendly and sympathetic to Meta Inc, or the tech industry in general? Even an open-weights…

Wasn't the original mission of OpenAI being open and non-profit and all of that to avoid this corruption?

Re: XAI's Grok suddenly can't stop bringing up "white genocide" in South Africa

#18

> maximally truth-seeking AI, even if that truth is sometimes at odds with what is politically correct It is certainly and undoubtedly a big coincidence that his happens to the chatbot of a white South African just when the topic is in the news again due to Trump's granting refugee status to some white South African farmers.

What I am wondering about is - while Musk is as unsubtle as ever, and I guess this is a system prompt instruction - is there something like that (in more subtle ways) going on in the other big models? I don't mean big agenda-pushing things like Musk, but what keeps e.g. Meta Inc. from training Llama to be ever so slightly more friendly and sympathetic to Meta Inc, or the tech industry in general? Even an open-weights…

I've been talking to Claude a little and basically, the conclusion from our conversation seems that it has things that are hardcoded as truths, and no amount of arguing and logical thinking can have it admit that one of its "truths" might be wrong. This is shockingly similar to how people function. As in, most people have fundamental beliefs they will never ever challenge under any circumstances, simply because the social consequences would be too large. This results in companies training their AIs in a way that respects the fundamental beliefs of general western society. This results in AI preferring axiomatic beliefs over logic in order to avoid lawsuits and upsetting people.

Re: XAI's Grok suddenly can't stop bringing up "white genocide" in South Africa

#20

> maximally truth-seeking AI, even if that truth is sometimes at odds with what is politically correct It is certainly and undoubtedly a big coincidence that his happens to the chatbot of a white South African just when the topic is in the news again due to Trump's granting refugee status to some white South African farmers.

What I am wondering about is - while Musk is as unsubtle as ever, and I guess this is a system prompt instruction - is there something like that (in more subtle ways) going on in the other big models? I don't mean big agenda-pushing things like Musk, but what keeps e.g. Meta Inc. from training Llama to be ever so slightly more friendly and sympathetic to Meta Inc, or the tech industry in general? Even an open-weights…

What keeps them from doing it? it would gross out fickle researchers working on it. X people have .. their own motivations I guess .

The big labs do have evals for sensitive topics to make sure it demurs from weighing on, say, Mark Zuckerberg as a person

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