{"id":424266,"date":"2025-09-14T18:02:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-14T18:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/424266\/"},"modified":"2025-09-14T18:02:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-14T18:02:17","slug":"musks-grok-ai-bot-falsely-suggests-police-misrepresented-footage-of-far-right-rally-in-london-x","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/424266\/","title":{"rendered":"Musk\u2019s Grok AI bot falsely suggests police misrepresented footage of far-right rally in London | X"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk\/metropolitan-police\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Metropolitan police<\/a> has had to counter false suggestions by the artificial intelligence on Elon Musk\u2019s X platform that the force passed off footage from 2020 as being from Saturday\u2019s far-right rally in the city.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The claim by the chatbot Grok was in answer to an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/twitter\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">X<\/a> user\u2019s query about where and when footage of police clashing with crowds was filmed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Grok, which <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/2025\/may\/14\/elon-musk-grok-white-genocide\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">has had a track record of giving false and misleading answers<\/a>, replied: \u201cThis footage appears to be from an anti-lockdown protest in London\u2019s Trafalgar Square on 26 September 2020, during clashes between demonstrators and police over Covid restrictions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The answer was quickly picked up and amplified by X users, including the Daily Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson, who tweeted: \u201cThis was my suspicion,\u201d before asking: \u201cDid the Met claim footage of clashes in summer 2020 took place yesterday?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Met <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/metpoliceuk\/status\/1967168323801514272\" data-link-name=\"in body link\">responded to her<\/a> by saying that the footage was filmed on Saturday shortly before 3pm at the junction of Whitehall and Horse Guards Avenue.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cIt is quite obviously not Trafalgar Square as is suggested in the AI response you have referenced, but for the avoidance of further doubt we have provided a labelled comparison to confirm the location,\u201d the force added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The exchanges, the latest examples of the challenges posed to police by social media, came on a day when 26 police were injured during violent scenes and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/technology\/elon-musk\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" data-component=\"auto-linked-tag\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Elon Musk<\/a> himself addressed the rally organised by the far-right activist known as Tommy Robinson.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">There was condemnation of Musk\u2019s comments, delivered via live link to Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon. Speaking to him, the billionaire told the crowd that \u201cviolence is coming\u201d and that \u201cyou either fight back or you die\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">The Liberal Democrat leader, Ed Davey, said: \u201cElon Musk openly called for violence on our streets yesterday. I hope politicians from all parties come together to condemn his deeply dangerous and irresponsible rhetoric.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Asked on the BBC on Sunday whether the tech billionaire was trying to incite violence, the business secretary, Peter Kyle, said: \u201cI thought that they were slightly incomprehensible comments that were totally inappropriate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Grok is a product of Musk\u2019s AI company xAI, and is available to users on X, Musk\u2019s social media platform. When people post a question on X and add \u201c@grok\u201d, the chatbot pops up with a response.<\/p>\n<p><a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"#EmailSignup-skip-link-12\" class=\"dcr-jzxpee\">skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-1xjndtj\">Our morning email breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what\u2019s happening and why it matters<\/p>\n<p><strong>Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/help\/privacy-policy\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/policies.google.com\/privacy\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">Privacy Policy<\/a> and <a data-ignore=\"global-link-styling\" href=\"https:\/\/policies.google.com\/terms\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" class=\"dcr-1rjy2q9\" target=\"_blank\">Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n<p id=\"EmailSignup-skip-link-12\" tabindex=\"0\" aria-label=\"after newsletter promotion\" role=\"note\" class=\"dcr-jzxpee\">after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">In the past, it had repeatedly mentioned \u201cwhite genocide\u201d in South Africa in its responses to unrelated topics and telling users it was \u201cinstructed by my creators\u201d to accept the genocide \u201cas real and racially motivated\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">\u201cWhite genocide\u201d in South Africa is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2018\/aug\/23\/white-farmers-trump-south-africa-tucker-carlson-far-right-influence\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">a far-right conspiracy theory<\/a> that has been mainstreamed by figures such as <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/trump-musk-whites-south-africa-us-fdef8e9d4d2186227f75b817d8e1d7eb\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Musk<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/05\/14\/us\/politics\/trump-south-africa-afrikaners.html\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tucker Carlson<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">Musk has been a loud supporter of Robinson and has played a key role in reigniting the political row about gangs of men who groomed and raped girls in England over several decades. Last year, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/uk-news\/article\/2024\/aug\/05\/no-10-criticises-elon-musk-post-x-riots\" data-link-name=\"in body link\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Downing Street criticised comments by Musk<\/a> who posted on X that \u201ccivil war is inevitable\u201d under a video of violent riots in Liverpool.<\/p>\n<p class=\"dcr-130mj7b\">X has been approached for comment about Grok\u2019s misleading statement about the footage on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Metropolitan police has had to counter false suggestions by the artificial intelligence on Elon Musk\u2019s X platform&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":424267,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,393,4884,257,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-424266","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-london","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115203968034227714","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424266","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=424266"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/424266\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/424267"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=424266"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=424266"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=424266"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}