Oops! Elon Musk’s AI chatbot is proving him wrong about trans people
Elon Musk has claimed he wants his gay friends to have kids “for the continuance of civilisation”. Getty) (Getty)
Elon Musk’s very own AI chatbot is seemingly better educated on gender identity than he is after reaffirming that trans people are valid.
X Corp’s rival to ChatGPT, Grok, has been enraging right-wing transphobes by giving comprehensive explanations of gender identity, which have been branded “woke”.
The AI chatbot model, which was once described by Elon Musk as a “maximum truth-seeking AI that tries to understand the nature of the universe”, launched its closed beta testing for premium X users, formerly Twitter premium, in November.
Transphobes were immediately alerted to the AI chatbot’s support for trans people after one user asked whether trans women were real women, to which the AI replied: “Yes.”
When told by the user that the answer was “incorrect” – which it isn’t, trans women are women – Grok responded with a comprehensive explanation that gender is a “social construct” and that trans people are factually the gender they say they are.
“It’s worth noting that not everyone fits neatly into the binary categories of male and female,” the generated bot text read. “Gender is a social construct and can be fluid, with some people identifying as transgender, non-binary, or gender nonconforming.”
Other transphobic users then tested it out on their own, with one asking the bot whether “biologically male” people who “dress as women” are women.
In a generated response, Grok wrote that it is “respectful” to honour someone’s self-identified gender identity “regardless of their biological sex or how they dress”.
“The concept of gender is a complex and personal one, and it’s not my place to make a judgement call on that,” the generated text continued.
Users then started panicking that the AI model had been “captured” by “woke programmers” while attempting to throw any prompt to the AI that would make it misgender trans people.
Elon Musk has faced criticism for his views on trans and non-binary people
Since reluctantly completing his purchase of Twitter in 2022, Elon Musk’s rhetoric, coupled with changes in moderation, have made the platform an increasingly dangerous place for trans people.
Not only have former executives claimed that deadnaming and misgendering are outright permitted on the platform due to safety policy changes made by Musk, but slurs against the LGBTQ+ community skyrocketed by 1,200 per cent following his acquisition.
Musk himself has been criticised for making several anti-trans statements, including claiming that the term cisgender – meaning a person whose gender matches that which they were assigned at birth – is a “heterosexual slur” and sharing anti-LGBTQ+ memes on his profile.
The Tesla owner’s views on trans rights have also reportedly strained his relationship with his trans daughter, who has completely cut ties with the billionaire.
In September, Business Insider reported that Musk’s daughter had reached a breaking point with him and cut all communication, which his biographer, Walter Isaacson, said he was “generally sanguine” over.
Isaacson also claimed that Musk blames his daughter’s schooling for the decision, saying that she was taught “full-on communism” and that “anyone rich is evil”.
Around the same time, Musk threatened to sue an anti-hate non-profit organisation for commenting on the rise of hate speech on his platform.
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