Topline
Comments about former President Donald Trump’s voice during his interview with Elon Musk on X Monday—during which some users on the platform claimed he was slurring his speech— prompted X’s AI-powered chatbot Grok to briefly push unsubstantiated claims about the former president missing his “dentures.”
X’s Grok chatbot boosted unsubstantiated claims about Trump wearing dentures, before the post was … [+]
Key Facts
During Trump’s discussion with Musk on Spaces, the word “slurring” trended on X with some users, including Vice President Kamala Harris’s official campaign account, pointing out what they thought was Trump lisping and slurring his words.
Posts about Trump’s speech were followed by unsubstantiated speculation about Trump missing his dentures, despite no evidence of the former president wearing dentures.
X’s AI chatbot Grok—which uses artificial intelligence to generate news summaries from trending topics for the platform’s premium subscribers—latched on to these posts and published a summary under the headline “Trump’s Dentures In Discussion Amid Speech.”
The summary post, according to a screenshot by the Verge, said many X users “noted that Trump sounded as if he was not wearing his dentures, commenting on his slurred speech and the apparent looseness of his dentures.”
This post, however, was quickly taken down by X and the summary’s link now leads to a blank page.
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Tangent
Another Grok post summarized criticism of Musk’s performance as an interviewer on Monday night, noting many users have “described him as a terrible, weak, or bad interviewer.” The post also included user comments about Musk’s “lack of engagement, inability to control the conversation, and poor communication skills,” and his public speaking skills, “with some suggesting he is one of the worst they have heard.”
Key Background
Musk’s artificial intelligence startup xAI rolled out its chatbot Grok last year to take on OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini. The chatbot can only be accessed by X’s premium subscribers who pay $8 a month. During its launch, Musk said Grok will be built into the X app but also promised a standalone version of the service in the future. Since then, the company has added new features to Grok, including one called “Stories on X,” which generates news summaries based on trending conversations on X.
News Peg
Last week, five secretaries of state from Minnesota, Pennsylvania, Washington, Michigan and New Mexico penned an open letter to Musk, asking him to fix Grok’s summaries after it posted election misinformation. The letter criticized the social platform’s AI tool for misleading users about ballot deadlines after President Joe Biden dropped out of the race last month. Grok’s summaries falsely claimed Harris was ineligible to appear on the presidential ballot in some states. Grok’s summaries have previously spread misinformation about Iran striking Tel Aviv with heavy missiles.
Further Reading
Musk-Trump X Interview: Trump Takes Friendly Questions From Musk After Glitch-Plagued Start (Forbes)
