Technology
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Technology
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Grok drama raises questions about AI regulation |
Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok has been plagued by controversy recently over its responses to users, raising questions about how tech companies seek to moderate content from AI and whether Washington should play a role in setting guidelines. |
© Allison Robbert/Pool via AP |
Grok faced sharp scrutiny last week, after an update prompted the AI chatbot to produce antisemitic responses and praise Adolf Hitler. Musk’s AI company, xAI, quickly deleted numerous incendiary posts and said it added guardrails to “ban hate speech” from the chatbot. Just days later, xAI unveiled its newest version of Grok, which Musk claimed was the “smartest AI model in the world.” However, users soon discovered that the chatbot appeared to be relying on its owner’s views to respond to controversial queries. “We should be extremely concerned that the best performing AI model on the market is Hitler-aligned. That should set off some alarm bells for folks,” Chris MacKenzie, vice president of communications at Americans for Responsible Innovation, an advocacy group focused on AI policy.
“I think that we’re at a period right now, where AI models still aren’t incredibly sophisticated,” he continued. “They might have access to a lot of information, right. But in terms of their capacity for malicious acts, it’s all very overt and not incredibly sophisticated.”
“There is a lot of room for us to address this misaligned behavior before it becomes much more difficult and much more harder to detect,” he added.
Lucas Hansen, co-founder of the nonprofit CivAI, which aims to provide information about AI’s capabilities and risks, said it was “not at all surprising” that it was possible to get Grok to behave the way it did.
“For any language model, you can get it to behave in any way that you want, regardless of the guardrails that are currently in place,” he told The Hill. Musk announced last week that xAI had updated Grok, after he previously voiced frustrations with some of the chatbot’s responses. In mid-June, the tech mogul took issue with a response from Grok suggesting that right-wing violence had become more frequent and deadly since 2016. Musk claimed the chatbot was “parroting legacy media” and said he was “working on it.” He later indicated he was retraining the model and called on users to help provide “divisive facts,” which he defined as “things that are politically incorrect, but nonetheless factually true.”
The update caused a firestorm for xAI, as Grok began making broad generalizations about people with Jewish last names and perpetuating antisemitic stereotypes about Hollywood.
Check out the full report at TheHill.com. |
Welcome to The Hill’s Technology newsletter, I’m Julia Shapero — tracking the latest moves from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. |
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How policy will be impacting the tech sector now and in the future: |
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Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Tuesday compared the race to dominate artificial intelligence (AI) to an American atomic bomb program during World War II. “The AI race is the second Manhattan project,” Wright said in a Tuesday post on the social platform X. During the World War II, the U.S. government’s Manhattan Project eventually succeeded in the creation of atomic weapons that the American military used against Japan in … |
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President Trump on Tuesday touted $92 billion in new private data center and energy investments as his administration seeks to boost the nation’s power supply amid a push to rapidly develop energy-hungry artificial intelligence (AI). Trump unveiled investments from 20 major energy and technology companies, including Google, CoreWeave and Blackstone, at Sen. Dave McCormick’s (R-Pa.) inaugural Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation … |
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David Sacks, President Trump’s artificial intelligence (AI) and crypto czar, urged tech billionaire and friend Elon Musk to reconsider his recent third-party push, arguing his political goals could be achieved through the Republican Party. Sacks, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, also said that he hopes Musk repairs his relationship with President Trump, as the two had a public falling out over the president’s “big, … |
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News we’ve flagged from the intersection of tech and other topics: |
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Nvidia says it will restart sales of a key AI chip to China, in a reversal of U.S. restrictions (CNN)
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Meta’s new superintelligence lab is discussing major AI strategy changes (New York Times)
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Hardline conservatives tank procedural crypto vote |
Twelve hardline House Republicans tanked a procedural vote Tuesday over concerns with crypto legislation the chamber is preparing to consider, bringing the floor to a standstill and dealing a blow to Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) and GOP leadership.
The vote on the rule — which governs debate for legislation — fell short of the majority support needed for adoption with a 196-223 tally, preventing the chamber from debating and eventually voting on legislation to fund the Pentagon for fiscal year 2026 and three crypto bills.
Republican “no” votes included Reps. Ann Paulina Luna (Fla.), Scott Perry (Pa.), Chip Roy (Texas), Victoria Spartz (Ind.), Michael Cloud (Texas), Andrew Clyde (Ga.), Eli Crane (Ariz.), Andy Harris (Md.), Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.), Tim Burchett (Tenn.), Keith Self (Texas) and Andy Biggs (Ariz.). House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) switched his vote to “no” as a procedural move to allow the chamber to re-vote on the measure at a later date. Johnson told reporters after the vote that the hardline critics want to link the crypto bills into one product, which is why they torpedoed the procedural vote.
The House this week is scheduled to vote on the GENIUS Act, negotiated by the Senate, which would create a regulatory framework for stablecoins.
It is also set to consider the Digital Asset Market Clarity Act of 2025, which would lay out regulations for the broader cryptocurrency market, as well as the Anti-CBDC Surveillance State Act, which would prevent the Federal Reserve from issuing a central bank digital currency. “Some members who really, really want to emphasize the House‘s product, as you know, Clarity Act, and the Anti-CBDC Act,” Johnson said.
“We have our bills as well,” he continued. “They want to push that and merge that together. We’re trying to work with the White House and with our Senate partners on this. I think everybody is insistent that we’re gonna do all three, but some of these guys insist that it needs to be all in one package.” |
Crypto Corner is a daily feature focused on digital currency and its outlook in Washington. |
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Branch out with other reads on The Hill: |
NASA drops plans to publish scrubbed climate change report on its site |
In a reversal, NASA no longer plans to publish a major climate report whose previous website was scrubbed by the Trump administration. The report in question, known as the National Climate Assessment, was previously housed on globalchange.gov. After the Trump administration eliminated the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) website, NASA spokesperson Bethany Stevens said that “all preexisting reports will … |
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