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

arstechnica.com

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

#41

Post by incomingpain »

The linked Musk comment where a minor political leader is singing kill the white farmers:

https://www.businesslive.co.za/bd/national/2024-05-30-julius...

Supreme court ruled that it was not hate speech.

In context, south africa has been expropriating land from white owners due to historical racist inequalities. There's a great deal of tensions on the subject.

Statistically, there is significant violence against white farmers in South Africa. However, the counter to genocide is that the country's overall murder rate is among the highest in the world. The problem is because there's so many white farmers that it's skewing the data?

South Africa during no war has a murder rate of 45 deaths per 100,000 per year. One of the worsts in the world.

The Gaza war since 2023 has roughly a ~20 deaths per 100,000 per year.

Ukraine war is roughly ~25 deaths per 100,000 per year.

My unpopular opinion:

The government isnt the one committing the genocide. The courts failed to punish this political leader's hate speech and stochastic terrorism, leading to genocide of white farmers.

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

#43

Post by josefritzishere »

awongh wrote: post #35

What's an actually non-tinfoil hat technical explanation of the workflow that would have to happen for this to be implemented? Elon is known for his capricious demands, (for example reports that he made the algo promote his own tweets more) how easily feasible is it to implement, "make it so Grok stops denying white genocide"? Is it just some kind of LORA you put on top of the base Grok model? It even sounds like it…

Most americans are generally uninformed on international politics, with African even more so. But we all know a certain CEO who is from South Africa and has some far right beleifs about race.

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

#44

Post by AlecSchueler »

_tk_ wrote: post #42

Why would this be flagged? The chat bot on one of the biggest platforms in the world has apparently been configured to spout conspiracies. I’m not sure what would be on topic for HN if not this story.

A sizeable portion of users now believe that topics related to X are no longer suitable for HN, because Musk's relationship with the American government means conversation can quickly devolve into criticism of that government's policies which in turn can lead to flame wars.

Another explanation is that there's another discussion. At least on the comments for that discussion the explanation is that this discussion exists...

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

#45

Post by [deleted] »

Lendal wrote: post #31
afavour wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s nothing stopping them at all. But in a way that’s nothing new. On one hand it feels like the height of conspiracy theory to say that Google, Meta etc would/could tweak their product to e.g. favour a particular presidential candidate. But on the other hand it’s entirely possible. Tweak what search results people see, change the weighting of what appears in their news feed… and these companies all have incentiv…

Why wouldn't they do it? If you had a backdoor into the brains of billions of people across the world (except China), and you were a billionaire with infinite ability to morally rationalize any behavior, what would stop you?

[deleted]

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

#46

Post by afavour »

Lendal wrote: post #31
afavour wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s nothing stopping them at all. But in a way that’s nothing new. On one hand it feels like the height of conspiracy theory to say that Google, Meta etc would/could tweak their product to e.g. favour a particular presidential candidate. But on the other hand it’s entirely possible. Tweak what search results people see, change the weighting of what appears in their news feed… and these companies all have incentiv…

Why wouldn't they do it? If you had a backdoor into the brains of billions of people across the world (except China), and you were a billionaire with infinite ability to morally rationalize any behavior, what would stop you?

To devils advocate my own point: the primary thing stopping you is people finding out and then stopping use of your product.

Zuckerberg doesn’t have a control panel where he can move sliders all by himself, any change in weight on the algorithm has to be implemented by a whole bunch of people, any of whom could leak to the press.

It’s not guaranteed it would happen by any means but it’s definitely something that would factor into a decision. Broadly I agree with you though, normally I’d say “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence” but I’m increasingly convinced the extraordinary claim here would be that they aren’t manipulating things to benefit themselves in some way or another.

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

#47

Post by ZeroGravitas »

philipallstar wrote: post #12
sshine wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pr…

That scheme seems similar to how veteran owned business preferences are implemented in the US. I've read the exact same complaint about that.

So it may have unintended consequences but it seems to be as good a solution as the US could come up with.

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

#48

Post by FirmwareBurner »

afavour wrote: post #46
Lendal wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't they do it? If you had a backdoor into the brains of billions of people across the world (except China), and you were a billionaire with infinite ability to morally rationalize any behavior, what would stop you?

To devils advocate my own point: the primary thing stopping you is people finding out and then stopping use of your product. Zuckerberg doesn’t have a control panel where he can move sliders all by himself, any change in weight on the algorithm has to be implemented by a whole bunch of people, any of whom could leak to the press. It’s not guaranteed it would happen by any means but it’s definitely something that woul…

>any change in weight on the algorithm has to be implemented by a whole bunch of people

They have their own DEI, affirmative action and cultural sensitivity teams who move the bias sliders based on their political viewpoints and on what management tells them depending which of the political groups they need to pander to: "Let's move the slider to the left to make sure Trump doesn't win; Oh shit Trump won, quick, move the slider to the right".

>any of whom could leak to the press

That's why they sign NDAs.

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

#50

Post by Lendal »

afavour wrote: post #46
Lendal wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why wouldn't they do it? If you had a backdoor into the brains of billions of people across the world (except China), and you were a billionaire with infinite ability to morally rationalize any behavior, what would stop you?

To devils advocate my own point: the primary thing stopping you is people finding out and then stopping use of your product. Zuckerberg doesn’t have a control panel where he can move sliders all by himself, any change in weight on the algorithm has to be implemented by a whole bunch of people, any of whom could leak to the press. It’s not guaranteed it would happen by any means but it’s definitely something that woul…

You mean informed people would stop using the product. The vast majority are not informed.
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