The AI-generated false headline was promoted by X in its official trending news section.

A shocking story was promoted on the “front page” or main feed of Elon Musk’s X on Thursday:

“Iran Strikes Tel Aviv with Heavy Missiles,” read the headline.

This would certainly be a worrying world news development. Earlier that week, Israel had conducted an airstrike on Iran’s embassy in Syria, killing two generals as well as other officers. Retaliation from Iran seemed like a plausible occurrence.

But, there was one major problem: Iran did not attack Israel. The headline was fake.

Even more concerning, the fake headline was apparently generated by X’s own official AI chatbot, Grok, and then promoted by X’s trending news product, Explore, on the very first day of an updated version of the feature.

  • @neatcheeEnglish
    22•8 months ago

    The shame of it is that despite this limitation LLMs have very real practical uses that, much like cryptocurrencies and NFTs did to blockchain, are being undercut by hucksters.

    Tesla has done the same thing with autonomous driving too. They claimed to be something they’re not (fanboys don’t @ me about semantics) and made the REAL thing less trusted and take even longer to come to market.

    Drives me crazy.

    • FlashMobOfOneEnglish
      8•8 months ago

      Yup, and I hate that.

      I really would like to one day just take road trips everywhere without having to actually drive.

      • @neatcheeEnglish
        4•8 months ago

        Right? Waymo is already several times safer than humans and tesla’s garbage, yet municipalities keep refusing them. Trust is a huge problem for them.

        And yes, haters, I know that they still have problems in inclement weather but that’s kinda the point: we would be much further along if it weren’t for the unreasonable hurdles they keep facing because of fear created by Tesla

      • @humorlessrepostEnglish
        2•8 months ago

        For road trips (i.e. interstates and divided highways), GM’s Super Cruise is pretty much there unless you go through a construction zone. I just went from Atlanta to Knoxville without touching the steering wheel once.

        • FlashMobOfOneEnglish
          1•8 months ago

          I’ll look into that when my Kia passes away. Thank you!

        • FlashMobOfOneEnglish
          1•8 months ago

          You can’t road trip in a train.