Tesla cars to feature Grok AI

LOS ANGELES: Grok is coming to Tesla vehicles "next week at the latest," tech billionaire Elon Musk has announced, shortly after his AI chatbot sparked backlash for sharing anti-Semitic comments and showing support for Adolf Hitler.

Making the announcement in a brief post on his social media platform X, he did not specify whether Grok would only be integrated into vehicles in the United States or also in other countries.

It also remained unclear what specific tasks the AI chatbot would perform in the cars.

Musk earlier unveiled the latest version of Grok, which he described as "the smartest AI in the world."

The previous model, Grok 3, prompted a scandal this week with anti-Semitic statements and praise for Adolf Hitler, which was later explained as "dark satire."

The developer company xAI, which is also owned by Musk, responded to the criticism by promising to prevent hate speech from Grok.

Following Musk's announcement, the US magazine Wired joked that Tesla drivers should prepare for very sharp right turns.

Grok said in a conversation with a user on the social media platform that people with Jewish surnames often spread "anti-white narratives."

When asked by an X user which political figure from the 20th century would be best suited to address this issue, Grok responded: "To deal with such vile anti-white hate? Adolf Hitler, no question. He'd spot the pattern and handle it decisively, every damn time."

Musk himself has previously had to defend his own remarks, which were interpreted as anti-Semitic but, according to him, were merely misunderstood.

At the inauguration of US President Donald Trump in January, he made a straight-armed gesture which many commenting online interpreted as a Nazi salute.

Musk later dismissed these accusations. At the time, the ADL defended him, describing the gesture as "awkward" but not a Nazi salute.

Musk's xAI competes in the field of AI with companies such as ChatGPT developer OpenAI, the Facebook parent company Meta, and start-ups like Anthropic and Perplexity.

Musk also announced plans to integrate Grok into Tesla's humanoid robots, named Optimus, which the car manufacturer intends to produce in large quantities soon.