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

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

#71

Post by ethbr1 »

BobaFloutist wrote: post #57
yorwba wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might forget to check. Musk seems to have been surprised that Grok doesn't share his opinions and has been clumsily trying to fix it for a while now. And it might not be easy to fix. Despite all the effort invested into aligning models with company policy, persistent users can still get around the guardrails with clever jailbreaks. In theory it should be possible to eliminate all non-compliant content from the t…

Also eliminating non-compliant data might actually just not work, since the one thing everyone knows about AIs is that they'll happily invent anything plausible sounding. So, for example, if a model was trained with no references to the Tiananmen Square massacre, I could see it just synthesizing commonalities between other massacres and inventing a new, worse Tiananmen Square Massacre. "That's not a thing that ever h…

The irony of implicit connections in training data is funny.

I.e. even if you create an explicit Tiananmen Square massacre-shaped hole in your training data... your other training data implicitly includes knowledge of the Tiananmen Square massacre, so might leak it in subtle ways.

E.g. how there are many posts that reference June 4, 1989 in Beijing with negative and/or horrified tones?

Which at scale, an LLM might then rematerialize into existence.

More likely SOTA censorship focuses on levels above base models in the input/output flow (even if that means running cut-down censoring models on top of base models for every query).

Would be fascinated to know what's currently being used for Chinese audiences, given the consequences of a non-compliant model are more severe.

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

#72

Post by const_cast »

inglor_cz wrote: post #69
ujkhsjkdhf234 wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

White South Africans only trauma is that apartheid no longer exist. South Africa has the largest wealth disparity with 0.1% of South Africans taking 25% of the wealth. I can tell you those 0.1% aren't black.

"I can tell you those 0.1% aren't black." Is Jacob Zuma now white or what? And what is precisely the connection between the richest tycoons out there and the rural farmers that get killed? The tycoons sure as hell have good security, murderous gang activity isn't their problem. Is your basic idea is that when some (white, Jewish etc.) people are rich, thus all (white, Jewish) people must pay for their sins with their…

> Is your basic idea is that when some (white, Jewish etc.) people are rich, thus all (white, Jewish) people must pay for their sins with their blood

I don't think this is anyone's idea, on the entire planet. Yes truly, 8 billion people and I'm not sure a single one thinks this way.

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

#73

Post by 1659447091 »

incomingpain wrote: post #41

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…

>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.

Are you suggesting that most of those murdered are white farmers?

The "Third Quarter 2024/2025 Crime Stats Presentation" [pdf] from South African Police Service Crime stats [0] show between: October 2024 to December 2024 there were 6953 Murders in RSA.[pg 8] and of those there were 12 victims linked to the "farm/small holding" community [pg 32]. 5 farm dwellers, 4 employees, 1 Farmer, 1 Security, & 1 not specified.

12 people linked to farms (but only 1 Farmer murdered) in the last quarter of 2024 in a place with some of the highest murder rates in the world -- does Not white farmer genocide make, nor is it "significant violence against white farmers". There were 68 total "contact crimes" committed in Rural communities; and 187,892 "contact crimes" for RSA in that time.

Contact crimes being violent crimes (and not counting sexual offenses or robbery)

[0] https://www.saps.gov.za/services/crimestats.php

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

#74

Post by ionosphere »

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…

Based on post history, this might be Elon Musk’s account.

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

#75

Post by incomingpain »

1659447091 wrote: post #73
incomingpain wrote: post #41

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…

>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. Are you suggesting that most…

The "we're doing so bad at preventing murder and not just white people are dying" is the worst defensive I've ever seen. It makes the numbers sus at best. How many murders go undiscovered when police are doing that bad of a job?

How many murders go undiscovered because police cant safely enter an area? The numbers are much worse than reported and when that's happening, that's usually a genocide.

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

#76

Post by verzali »

pixelpoet wrote: post #3

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.

>it's still pretty much the crappiest place to be as a tech / programming guy (or just anyone who likes having electricity).

I'm pretty sure Afghanistan is worse, but Trump says its okay to go back there.

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

#77

Post by MSFT_Edging »

Mashimo wrote: post #36
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's a bit like what happened in Zimbabwe that devastated that country 20 years ago when all the white farmers were kicked out Land reform to repair the inequality from the previous apartheid state isn't exactly "kicked out". Zimbabwe became Zimbabwe from Rhodesia via a civil war that wrestled control away from the minority white government. In South Africa today, 75% of the privately owned land is held by about 8%…

> Land reform to repair the inequality from the previous apartheid state isn't exactly "kicked out". I don't know too much about Zimbabwe. From what I read about 4,000 white farmers lost house and land, and now 40 years later they are giving compensation. Why can't you say "kicked out" for that? I do lack the knowledge to say if it was justified or not. But I consider that a kick on the way out. Or do you mean that w…

I mean that redistributing the fruits of an apartheid state to the previously second-class citizens is a net good, and to say they were kicked out without greater context does a disservice to the history.

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

#78

Post by h2zizzle »

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…

You colonized them, monopolized their resources, and used the spoils to fuel an apartheid state with some of the highest levels of inequality humanity has ever seen.

It's really, really difficult to think of a set-up that's more economically-distortive on its face; a complete dislocation of labor productivity and sovereignty.

There's no possible way that the "devastation" began with the end of apartheid. It was built into the existing system. Geez. Black South Africans (and Zimbabweans!) are building a way out m of a hole dug for them by their colonizers, with the cheapo equipment that the global monetary apparatus will (predatorily) lend them.

I have no doubt that it was not an ideal place to be, psychologically, as a white man. Materially? Eh.

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

#79

Post by 1659447091 »

incomingpain wrote: post #75
1659447091 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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. Are you suggesting that most…

The "we're doing so bad at preventing murder and not just white people are dying" is the worst defensive I've ever seen. It makes the numbers sus at best. How many murders go undiscovered when police are doing that bad of a job? How many murders go undiscovered because police cant safely enter an area? The numbers are much worse than reported and when that's happening, that's usually a genocide.

What does that have to do with white farmers? Are you saying there are blockades in rural farm lands that prevent police from entering?

The stats don't even say if that one farmer was white black or any other color nor their sex. 5 of those 12, the employees/security killed, were most likely black, the farmer could have been as well. (same for the 4 dwellers if they were the employee's family that lives on the farm)

If you are claiming general genocide because many people kill other people for so many different reasons, that is not genocide. Considering how many women and children are killed due to domestic violence, maybe you can use the words femicide or filicide instead.

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

#80

Post by MSFT_Edging »

bgwalter wrote: post #30
MSFT_Edging wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group In this situation, it's specifically about farmers(large scale private landowners). The nature of them being targeted isn't purely because they're white, but that they hold 3/4 of the privately owned land in SA and likely wield that privilege and power.

Oh sure, my comment was addressing the general issue of perceived "genocide inflation". I have no knowledge about SA.

Yeah, I think the person you were originally replying to was intended to whitewash actual genocidal activities currently happening, lumping this in with genuine ethnic cleansings to make a point of "genocide inflation".
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