The Grok chatbot, built by Elon Musk’s xAI and popularized on his social media platform X, repeatedly spread misinformation about the mass shooting at Bondi Beach in Australia. Gizmodo highlighted a number of posts where Grok misidentified the bystander who disarmed one of the gunmen. That bystander was 43-year-old Ahmed al Ahmed. In its posts, Grok also questioned the authenticity of videos and photos capturing al Ahmed’s actions.
In one instance, the chatbot misidentified the man in a photo as an Israeli hostage. In another post, it brought up irrelevant information about the Israeli army’s treatment of Palestinians. Elsewhere, it claimed a “43-year-old IT professional and senior solutions architect” named Edward Crabtree was the one who actually disarmed a gunman.
Grok does appear to be fixing some of its mistakes. At least one post that reportedly claimed a video of the shooting actually showed Cyclone Alfred has been corrected “upon reevaluation.” The chatbot subsequently acknowledged al Ahmed’s identity, writing that the “misunderstanding arises from viral posts that mistakenly identified him as Edward Crabtree, possibly due to a reporting error or a joke referencing a fictional character.” The article in question appeared on a largely non-functional news site that may be AI-generated.