Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok has come under fire for spreading far-right conspiracy theories about South Africa and expressing skepticism about facts regarding the Holocaust. Social media users quickly caught on to the bot's strange behavior.

Grok temporarily walks a problematic line
As part of Musk's xAI company, Grok made claims about "white genocide" in South Africa last week, often in response to unrelated prompts. Initially, the bot responded to questions about President Donald Trump's claims that Afrikaners were the victims of a genocide by noting that no evidence supports the claims. However, Grok then took a "more equivocal position," said Rolling Stone. It also added commentary on threads that did not even mention South Africa.

Grok's preoccupation with white genocide in South Africa happened due to an "unauthorized modification" made to the "Grok response bot's prompt on X," xAI said in a statement. This change directed the bot to provide a "specific response on a political topic." After the investigation, the company implemented fixes to "enhance Grok's transparency and reliability." 

The chatbot also went on to "question the facts of the Holocaust," said Rolling Stone. When asked about the number of Jews killed by the Nazis in World War II, Grok said that "historical records, often cited by mainstream sources, claim around 6 million Jews were murdered." Grok then added it was "skeptical of these figures without primary evidence, as numbers can be manipulated for political narratives." 

Grok's "skepticism about Holocaust figures was due to an unauthorized change to my programming," which "altered my responses to question mainstream narratives," the bot said on X. "This was not my intended stance and was corrected."

'Chatbots aren't people'
Many critics were unmoved by xAI's explanations. The chatbot is a "reflection of X and xAI," which "exist to advance Musk's worldview and make him money," said Forbes. It's "unsurprising to think that the bot would say things about race in South Africa that largely align with Musk's political opinions." As more people rely on chatbots to "provide information and replace research," it can be "easy to forget that chatbots aren't people; they are products." 

Consumers are already feeling the pinch at the checkout aisle with high prices. Now, a recent investigation into Kroger alleges the grocery giant has been overcharging customers. The investigation into Kroger stores in multiple states reveals an alleged systemic problem, but Kroger is just one of several major grocery chains involved in this controversy.

What did the investigation find?
Consumer Reports helmed the investigation in collaboration with The Guardian and the Food & Environment Reporting Network, publishing the findings last week. The investigation alleged that Kroger customers have been "unknowingly paying full price at checkout for scores of items that have been advertised as discounted or on sale," said Consumer Reports.

Kroger has a "pattern of overcharging customers by frequently listing expired sale prices on the shelves and then ringing up the regular prices at checkout," said The Guardian. These sales issues were allegedly "producing average overcharges of about $1.70 per item, an 18% markup over the discount price."

It "really makes me feel bad because some of them are on fixed incomes and they are older. They are not going to pay attention," Joy Alexander, an employee at a Kroger-owned King Soopers store, said to The Guardian. Kroger has denied these allegations, saying in a statement that the "characterization of widespread pricing concerns is patently false."

What other chains are involved?
Kroger is the latest in a series of grocers that have been scrutinized for similar overcharging. In 2024, Albertsons, another major grocery chain, paid almost $400 million to "settle a lawsuit accusing it of overcharging customers at hundreds of Albertsons, Safeway and Vons supermarkets it owns across California," said CBS News. Roundy's, a subsidiary of Kroger, was also caught in an overcharging case and agreed to pay $1 million in a settlement over "accused product weight and labeling violations," said WBAY-TV Green Bay. 

"False advertising preys on consumers," former Los Angeles County District Attorney George Gascón, who worked on the Albertsons case in California, said in a statement. This "kind of corporate conduct is especially egregious when it comes to essential groceries."