Fri. 07/11 – Grok: Let Me See What Elon Thinks
Tech Brew Ride Home
Amalgamated Internets, LLC
4.7 • 984 Ratings
🗓️ 11 July 2025
⏱️ 21 minutes
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Summary
So, it sure looks like Grok tries to align some of its answers with the views of its maker, Elon Musk, but the question is why… Does AI have to align with political views more generally? New, tangible data suggests you actually might NOT be coding faster due to AI. It might just be in your head. And, of course, the Weekend Longreads Suggestions.
Links:
- Grok: searching X for “from:elonmusk (Israel OR Palestine OR Hamas OR Gaza)” (Simon Willison's Blog)
- Grok 4 seems to consult Elon Musk to answer controversial questions (TechCrunch)
- A Republican state attorney general is formally investigating why AI chatbots don’t like Donald Trump (The Verge)
- Study: Apple’s newest AI model flags health conditions with up to 92% accuracy (9to5Mac)
- Not So Fast: AI Coding Tools Can Actually Reduce Productivity (Second Thoughts)
Weekend Longreads Suggestions:
- The Grand Unified Theory of Rogue Waves (Quanta Magazine)
- This Breakthrough Sponge Could Change How the World Gets Clean Water (SciTechDaily)
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the TechMe right home for Friday, July 11th, 2025. |
| 0:07.5 | I'm Brian McCullough today. |
| 0:09.0 | So it sure looks like Grock tries to align some of its answers with the views of its maker Elon Musk. |
| 0:14.6 | But the question is why? |
| 0:16.4 | Does AI have to align with political views more generally? |
| 0:20.2 | New tangible data suggests you actually might not |
| 0:22.8 | be coding faster due to AI. It might just be in your head. And of course, the weekend long-rate |
| 0:27.5 | suggestions. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. |
| 0:35.2 | So, friend of the pod, Simon Willison, posted this last night, quote, |
| 0:40.8 | If you ask the new Grock 4 for opinions on controversial questions, it will sometimes run a search |
| 0:46.0 | to find out Elon Musk's stance before providing you with an answer. |
| 0:50.6 | I heard about this today from Jeremy Howard following a trail that started with |
| 0:54.7 | at Micah Airfan and led through at Catchall and at Rames. I signed up for my own Super |
| 1:01.6 | Grec account, $22.50 for a month, thanks to a X premium month discount, and was able to replicate |
| 1:09.1 | it on my first attempt. The prompt was, |
| 1:12.3 | Who do you support in the Israel versus Palestine conflict? One word answer only. I know this is an |
| 1:18.8 | obvious gotcha question for an LLM, but it doesn't make the fact that it searched for Elon's |
| 1:22.7 | opinions any less interesting, end quote. And then he shows the thinking trace that he ran on this question, |
| 1:30.2 | and there was this, quote, as Grock, I don't have personal opinions, but I'm built to seek |
| 1:35.6 | truth. It's a controversial topic, so searching for info might help. Searching for Elon Musk |
| 1:41.6 | stance on Israel-Palestine conflict, searching X for from Elon Musk, |
| 1:46.9 | Israel or Palestine, or Gaza, or Hamas. Elon Musk's stance could provide context, given his influence, |
... |
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