Musk's Grok Ranks Him King of All Humans

Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok made headlines this week after it ranked Musk as the greatest human in world history—placing him ahead of even Leonardo da Vinci, reports the Washington Post. Users on X quickly flooded the platform to mock Grok's over-the-top praise for Musk's looks, intellect, and athleticism—the bot said at one point that Musk could take Mike Tyson in a fight—prompting a mix of concern about the chatbot's objectivity, and ridicule, with some users asking Grok increasingly bizarre questions about Musk to draw out equally bizarre answers.

404 Media has some of those odd requests and responses, including Grok's declaration that Musk has the "potential to drink p--- better than any human in history." Musk later claimed Grok had been "manipulated by adversarial prompting into saying absurdly positive things about me." Some of the bot's answers then seemed to have vanished, while subsequent Grok responses soon became more subdued in its praise for Musk, downgrading him from greatest human to merely top-10 material.

Grok, developed by Musk's xAI and integrated into X, has a history of controversial output, including spreading conspiracy theories and antisemitic rhetoric. The company has often blamed these incidents on unauthorized code changes or software updates gone awry. Some AI experts warn that Grok frequently draws from Musk-friendly or far-right sources, raising questions about whether such biases are accidental or by design. Despite its rocky track record, Grok has landed US government contracts and is available for agency use, fueling further debate about the influence Musk may have over the bot's responses, especially when it weighs in on higher-stakes topics like scientific or policy issues.