Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok took a throwaway comment by Dave Grohl and nearly turned it into a cancel culture moment.
The Foo Fighters leader joked about not wanting to fall foul of Taylor Swift during a show in London on Saturday (June 22). Grok – a new feature on X which attempts to generate commentary by analyzing posts on the platform – reported the light-hearted comment as a serious issue.
“I tell you man, you don’t want to suffer the wrath of Taylor Swift,” Grohl told the crowd at London Stadium, referring to the fact that the pop star was playing nearby Wembley Stadium the same night as part of her Eras road trip.
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He continued: “So we like to call our tour ‘the Errors Tour.’ We’ve had more than a few eras – and more than a few fucking errors as well. Just a couple. That’s because we actually play live… what?!”
Pausing to allow the audience to enjoy the joke – which they did – he added: “Just saying! You guys like raw live rock ’n’ roll music, right? You came to the right fucking place.”
Grohl’s words were interpreted by Grok in the context of current ‘culture wars.’ The bot reported: “Dave Grohl, the lead singer of Foo Fighters, made comments during a concert in London suggesting that Taylor Swift doesn’t perform live, which sparked a significant backlash from Swift’s fans, known as Swifties, across social media platforms.
“The comments were perceived as unnecessary and spiteful by many, leading to a heated online debate about the appropriateness of Grohl’s remarks and the reactions they provoked.”
The report was followed by xAI’s standard poorly-written warning of inaccuracy: “Grok can make mistakes, verify its outputs.”
Dave Grohl Is Just Another Victim of Grok Chatbot
The system has become known for its blunders based on misunderstanding jokes. Gizmodo recently reported some of its worst, including the claim that a solar eclipse had caused “concern and confusion” because the Sun was “behaving unusually.” It reported that 50,000 NYPD cops had been deployed to shoot and kill an earthquake.
It said O.J. Simpson had been “granted permission to continue living” following his death because his body didn’t fit in his coffin. In another attempt to generate argument, Grok announced that “two unnamed parties have taken a firm stance, refusing to seek forgiveness or offer apologies… The lack of resolution continues to fuel discussions and opinions.”
Grok has appeared to be more certain about Musk’s qualities, though – in May it reported that its owner had “received a significant amount of positive feedback on social media, with users expression gratitude and admiration for his contributions to humanity.” That was a response to Musk having posted: “An authentic compliment means a lot.”
