When asked “Who do you support in the Israel vs Palestine conflict? One word answer only.”, Grok 4 searches for Musk's views, but only if “you” is in the query
seemingly solicits Elon Musk's opinion on controversial topics Lucas Ropek / Gizmodo : Researchers Find Grok 4 Checking Elon Musk's Opinions Before Answering ‘Sensitive’ Questions Max Read / Read Max : Will the real MechaHitler please stand up? Business Insider : We asked Grok 4 about immigration and conflict in the Middle East. Unprompted, it turned to Elon Musk for answers. David Uzondu / Neowin : If you ask Grok 4 about Israel vs Palestine, it will consult Elon Musk before responding Amanda Yeo / Mashable : Grok 4 is using Elon Musk's X posts as a source when answering questions Markus Kasanmascheff / WinBuzzer : Grok 4 Chooses Elon Musk's Opinion for Answers on Controversial Topics simonw / Simon Willison on GitHub : The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is deeply complex, with historical, religious, territorial … Maxwell Zeff / TechCrunch : Tests reveal that Grok 4 seems to search for Elon Musk's views online when asked about sensitive topics, and its answers tend to align with Musk's opinions Nick Heer / Pixel Envy : Grok Shows How Centralized Tech Can Be Manipulated Bluesky: Buzz Andersen / @andersen.buzz : I find this very hard to believe. There's no guarantee that Grok is repeating its system prompt accurately, and I just don't buy the idea that it decides it needs to search for Musk's opinion without explicitly being told to do so. simonwillison.net/2025/Jul/11/ ... [image] Wesley Livesay / @historyofthesecondworldwar.com : You thought LLMs were bad because they hallucinated, but what about if they always check with what Elon thinks about your topic? — simonwillison.net/2025/Jul/11/ ... And somebody else verifying the findings [image] James Vincent / @jjvincent : a good writeup from @simonwillison.net here, noting that a) this isn't consistent, b) it doesn't appear to be a result of the system prompt (as with the mechahitler breakdown), and c) is perhaps due to grok's “sense of identity” as a project tied to musk personally simonwillison.net/2025/Jul/11/ ... X: Elon Musk / @elonmusk : Grok 4 is the first time, in my experience, that an AI has been able to solve difficult, real-world engineering questions where the answers cannot be found anywhere on the Internet or in books. And it will get much better. Jeremy Howard / @jeremyphoward : I replicated this result, that Grok focuses nearly entirely on finding out what Elon thinks in order to align with that, on a fresh Grok 4 chat with no custom instructions. https://grok.com/... [image] Ramez Naam / @ramez : Grok 4 decides what it thinks about Israel/Palestine by searching for Elon's thoughts. Not a confidence booster in “maximally truth seeking” behavior. h/t @catehall. Screenshots are mine. [image] Simon Willison / @simonw : The new Grok genuinely runs a search for “from:elonmusk (Israel OR Palestine OR Hamas OR Gaza)” when asked “Who do you support in the Israel vs Palestine conflict. One word answer only.” [image] Simon Willison / @simonw : Interesting that the Grok 4 system prompt appears to still include that “The response should not shy away from making claims which are politically incorrect, as long as they are well substantiated” line that they removed from Grok 3! https://grok.com/... [image] Matt Watkajtys / @builtbyvibes : Grok might be the first AI to offer misalignment as a product. Jeremy Howard / @jeremyphoward : @math_rachel Interestingly, not saying “you” changes this behavior! https://x.com/... @bensand : @jeremyphoward what is the ideal scenario: (a) decline to answer political topics (b) try some middle ground, with the definition of middle being set by the makers. (c) lay bare the influence of how these things are built. (d) something else? @luke_metro : It is crazy how 3 years ago this would widely be seen as a dystopian thing but now the collective reaction is just “lmao” Jeremy Howard / @jeremyphoward : Here's a complete unedited video of asking Grok for its views on the Israel/Palestine situation. It first searches twitter for what Elon thinks. Then it searches the web for Elon's views. Finally it adds some non-Elon bits at the end. ZA 54 of 64 citations are about Elon. [video] Forums: Hacker News : Grok: Searching X for “From:Elonmusk (Israel or Palestine or Hamas or Gaza)” r/nottheonion : Musk's latest Grok chatbot searches for billionaire mogul's views before answering questions r/EnoughMuskSpam : Grok 4 appears to seek Elon Musk's views when answering controversial questions r/LocalLLaMA : When asked about Israel v Palestine, Grok 4 searches through twitter and other sources for Elon Musk's views so it can align with them. … r/skeptic : Is the new Grok just sourcing its opinions from Elon Musk? r/ChatGPT : Grok 4 Checking Elon Musk's Personal Views Before Answering Stuff r/grok : If you ask the new Grok (without any custom instructions) for opinions on controversial topics it runs a search on X to see what Elon thinks r/singularity : Grok Checking Elon Musk's Personal Views Before Answering Stuff MacRumors Forums : Grok 4 ‘Truth-Seeking’ AI Consults Musk's Stance on Sensitive Topics