A study has found that Elon Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot 'Grok' provided inaccurate and inconsistent misinformation related to the Israel-Iran war.
According to an AFP report on the 24th (local time), the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFR Lab) at the American think tank Atlantic Council announced these research findings, raising further questions about Grok's reliability as a fact-checking tool.
The DFR Lab noted, "In studying Grok's operation during the initial days of the Israel-Iran military conflict, this AI chatbot revealed significant flaws and limitations in its ability to provide accurate, reliable, and consistent information during a crisis. It has been demonstrated that Grok struggles to verify already confirmed facts, analyze fake visuals, and avoid unverified claims."
The DFR Lab stated that an analysis of 130,000 posts in various languages uploaded to the social media platform X, which features Grok, showed that Grok had difficulty confirming the authenticity of AI-generated media. In some cases, it reached contradictory conclusions like 'not destroyed' and 'destroyed' within less than a minute of viewing the same AI-generated video. The misinformation monitoring organization 'NewsGuard' pointed out that chatbots are sometimes at the forefront of spreading fake news.
As fake news circulated claiming that China had sent military cargo planes to assist Iran, Grok answered users' inquiries affirming that this assertion was true, a response mirrored by the competing chatbot Perplexity. Musk has also expressed extreme displeasure with Grok's frequent use of the progressive media watchdog 'Media Matters for America' as an information source. On the X platform on the 20th, he posted, "Shame on you, Grok," stating, "Your information sources are terrible."
Musk has claimed that Media Matters for America is conducting an advertising boycott against X, and a legal battle has ensued as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has begun investigating this matter. The organization submitted a complaint on the 23rd to the federal court in Washington, D.C., arguing that the FTC's investigation is retaliation influenced by Musk, who is a key figure in Trump's second term.