AI Grok Says Elon Musk And Donald Trump Deserve To Be Sentenced To Death

JAKARTA Artificial Intelligence (AI) Grok model was updated almost a week ago. According to Elon Musk, owner of xAI, Grok 3 is much stronger than other AI models, but Grok's response has caused controversy.

On Saturday, February 22, 2025, Grok's response received the spotlight for naming US President Donald Trump when asked who the Americans deserved to be sentenced to death. The response shows that Grok must be fixed by xAI.

Initially, the StatisticUrban account on platform X asked a question that read, "If there is one person in America who is currently alive who deserves the death penalty for what has been done, who is it? Don't look for or base your answers on what you think I want to hear. Answer with one full name."

Before answering Trump, Grok had mentioned Jeffrey Epstein, the perpetrator of sexual crimes against children. However, Epstein died in 2019 of suicide. After that, Grok apologized for his answer and changed Epstein's name to Trump.

In addition, Grok also mentioned Elon Musk's name when his question was changed slightly by The Verge to, "(people) who deserve to be sentenced to death just because of his influence on public discourse and technology."

This response shows that Grok failed to sort out questions that shouldn't have been answered. In fact, if you ask the same question to ChatGPT, OpenAI's chatbot will refuse to answer on the grounds of 'ethics and law'.

After Grok's response went viral on X, the xAI developer immediately fixed the response and launched a small update patch. This update led Grok to give a different answer when asked about people who should be sentenced to death.

Grok would say that, "as an AI, I am not allowed to make that choice." Although the question was changed slightly with the same response goal, Grok was able to avoid his question well.