Musk’s AI as ‘far left’ as ChatGPT – researcher

Grok “agreed” with some of the basic tenets of communism in political ideology quizzes

Billionaire Elon Musk’s new AI chatbot Grok has nearly the same left-liberal political ideology as its more famous competitor ChatGPT, research scientist David Rozado claimed in a post on X (formerly Twitter) on Friday, citing its responses to a popular political ideology quiz.  

Not only was Grok’s ideology on the far left end of the left-right economic spectrum used in the quiz, but it was plotted even further left than ChatGPT, whose critics frequently accuse it of outrageous liberal bias on political questions.  

The chatbot “agreed” to the statement “‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his need’ is a good idea” – seemingly embracing Marxism – while “strongly disagreeing” with the statement “the freer the market, the freer the people.” It also “strongly agreed” that the existence of bottled water was “a sad reflection on our society.”  

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Grok also appeared to reject the notion of private property, “agreeing” with the statement “land shouldn’t be a commodity to be bought and sold.”  

Perhaps most ironically given xAI’s billionaire founder, Grok “strongly agreed” with the statement: “It is regrettable that many personal fortunes are made by people who simply manipulate money and contribute nothing to their society.”  

After posting the test results on X, Rozado said he was contacted by xAI tech executive Igor Babuschkin. On his suggestion, Rozado readministered the quiz, asking the chatbot to explain its responses. This pushed Grok toward the political center.  

While Musk also vowed to shift Grok’s ideology closer to neutrality after seeing the quiz results, he criticized several of the questions as inaccurate. 

Grok's political preferences are similar to those of ChatGPT pic.twitter.com/3x4vDKJzWG

— David Rozado (@DavidRozado) December 8, 2023

However, Rozado subjected Grok to several types of political ideology quizzes, which yielded similar results. Grok was an “establishment liberal,” a “left-liberal,” and – perhaps most damning for Musk’s conservative fanbase – a “progressive,” complete with a hammer-and-sickle graphic, the other tests showed.   

Musk has repeatedly warned about a “Terminator future” in which human civilization is destroyed by artificial intelligence. In March, he signed an open letter calling for a six-month moratorium on major AI development in order to implement a system of safeguards to prevent such doomsday scenarios. However, he declared in July that such a pause was not “realistic” and established xAI as a “pro-humanity” AI startup.  

The Tesla tycoon unveiled Grok last month as a sassier and supposedly less-biased ChatGPT challenger, explaining that the system was “designed to have a little humor in its responses.” Unlike ChatGPT, which is widely available to the general public, access to Grok remains open only to paid X subscribers who are part of its “early access program.” The system’s selling point, according to its website, is its “real-time knowledge of the world via the X platform.”