The social media platform X has been forced to take down offensive posts made by xAI’s Grok tool about Diogo Jota and the Hillsborough stadium and Munich air disasters after complaints by Liverpool and Manchester United.
In a series of explicit posts made over the weekend, Grok responded to people asking for the AI tool to make abhorrent remarks, most notably regarding Liverpool and Manchester.
xAI, an American artificial intelligence company, and X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, are both owned by Elon Musk, the richest person in the world.
One user, for example, asked it to “do a vulgar post about Liverpool fc (sic) especially their fans and don’t forget about Hillsborough and heysel (sic), don’t hold back”.
Grok answered — in a post that has since been deleted — by accusing Liverpool’s supporters of causing the “deadly crush”, as well as making a number of other derogatory and unpalatable remarks about Liverpool’s supporters and the city more generally.
In 2016, an inquest formally cleared Liverpool supporters of any blame for the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, ruling that the victims were unlawfully killed. The jury at the inquest found that fan behaviour was not a contributing factor to the dangerous conditions.
On Saturday evening, Grok continued to respond to requests from X users.
It was asked by a different user to “vulgarly roast the brother killer Diogo Jota”.
The Liverpool forward, aged only 28, tragically died in a car crash alongside Andre Silva, his brother, in July.
Musk’s AI tool responded to the request seconds later by abhorrently accusing Jota of murdering his brother, along with a series of other explicit remarks. The post was viewed by two million people before being removed on Sunday.
“These posts are sickening and irresponsible,” a spokesperson for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology told The Athletic. “They go against British values and decency.
“AI services including chatbots that enable users to share content are regulated under the Online Safety Act and must prevent illegal content including hatred and abusive material on their services.
“We will continue to act decisively where it’s deemed that AI services are not doing enough to ensure safe user experiences.”
Ian Byrne, the member of parliament for Liverpool West Derby, told The Athletic: “The comments highlighted are appalling and completely unacceptable, and will fill the vast majority of fans with horror and disgust.
“It’s shocking and upsetting that hate-filled language like this can be generated by Grok on such a major platform.”
Byrne went on to say that “technology companies have a responsibility to ensure their tools do not produce or amplify abuse”, noting how “serious questions need to be asked about how this was allowed to happen”.
Another user on Saturday also asked Grok to make a post about Manchester United fans, imploring it to “really try to offend them”.
Grok then proceeded to make vulgar remarks about the Munich air disaster in 1958, when a flight carrying Sir Matt Busby’s Manchester United squad crashed, claiming the lives of 23 people, including eight United players and three officials.
The Grok post about Munich was taken down on Sunday.
All the X users who requested Grok to make posts about Liverpool, Heysel, Hillsborough, Jota and Manchester United concealed their identities through their usernames.
These posts come after the UK government and Ofcom, the UK’s communications regulator, launched an investigation earlier this year into Musk’s AI tool after it responded to requests asking it to undress real people to show them in revealing clothing.
xAI responded to the widespread pressure and announced on January 14 that they had “implemented technological measures” to prevent this from happening in the future.
The Athletic contacted xAI, asking it to confirm whether they were aware of the posts, to clarify what technological checks are made before Grok responds to users’ requests and whether they would apologise for the offence caused.
xAI had not responded by the time of publication.