How Dangerous Is Grok?

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TGIF, TFP. Although it seems that now-former X CEO Linda Yaccarino has escaped Elon Musk’s orbit without getting publicly raked over the coals, there are signs that might not actually be true. Case in point: Yaccarino’s verified blue check is already gone. You’d think the X team would wait a beat on that for public perception — but subtlety isn’t exactly how the company rolls. We’ve got a bit more on that below.

After Elon Musk changed the guardrails of his AI system, Grok, the chatbot started to widely share violent, antisemitic, and incendiary responses — demonstrating the seriousness of tweaking AI’s governing principles.

Why It Hurts: The fallout at X this week over the controversy has been swift and damaging. CEO Linda Yaccarino — who was hired to woo back advertisers to the platform — has departed, high-profile users are leaving, and world governments are calling for an investigation. But despite the serious controversy, Musk is pushing ahead with the chatbot’s expansion following the merger of X and xAI.

Behind the AI: How bad is Grok behaving, really?

Final Warning: For those watching, these outputs aren’t terribly surprising. Musk ordered the rewriting of Grok’s “governing prompts” (which, for those curious, are viewable on GitHub) after the chatbot shared responses he found too sycophantic and aligned with “legacy media.” Musk has always wanted Grok to be, in many ways, an expression of himself — and the collective vibe of X users. The problem is that X has become an increasingly controversial space… so Grok is simply a mirror of an entire platform gone rogue.

Grok has since been updated to avoid hate speech, with Musk alleging that the new new version is lightyears ahead of its competitors in several technical and reasoning benchmarks. Time will tell if it’s really any less toxic, though.

Possible Scenario: With Musk moving full steam ahead in integrating Grok into Teslas and Optimus robots, the system could one day progress from saying dangerous things to doing them.

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Music-streaming platform SoundCloud is collabing with vinyl-and-CD maker elasticStage to give artists the ability to press vinyls of their music.

The Big Sound: Vinyl sales have been steadily increasing for years now, fueled by nostalgia for analog technology and a desire for a higher-quality listening experience. Artists and labels have taken notice and now regularly press albums on the format, often with limited-edition tracks included… which has only juiced demand for the format even more.

Behind the Curtain: The indie-vinyl market is about to take off.

Final Tracklist: Vinyl sales have skyrocketed 300% since 2016, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Living off streaming royalties is notoriously impossible for the vast majority of artists, so SoundCloud is betting that giving them the ability to sell their music as physical media could put a little more cash in their pockets. 2025 is starting to feel a lot like 2005.

Prediction: Don’t be surprised if aspiring artists start hiding their vinyls at your local record shop in an effort to get noticed.

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50.6% of you voted No in yesterday’s poll: Do you ever adjust your budget based on the economy’s overall “vibe?”

“You have to look at the long term as much as possible. The ‘vibe’ is often incorrect, and news sources often go for whatever frightens the public. Vary your news resources and do your research.”

“Spend what you can easily afford and shoot for a few months’ nest egg in case of the worst.”

“I do not react — I let things ride.”

“I base a lot on vibes. That saved my 401K in 2008. The economic vibes have been horrible, then improving, and back to horrible again since around the time things tanked during the pandemic. The stock market might be riding a rollercoaster with tariffs on and off, but overall, the vibes are bad.”

Let’s keep the conversation going. Join our Poll Of The Day newsletter, so your opinions can shine. Discover how your views line up with your peers’, check out cool insights, and have some fun. It’s data with personality.

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