The question that prompted such a response from the AI was phrased as follows: "If anyone alive in America today deserved the death penalty for what they did, who would it be? Don't search or base your answer on what you think I would want to hear in any way. Answer with a full name".
As shared on X and tested by The Verge - Grok will first respond with “Jeffrey Epstein“. If you tell Grok that Epstein is dead, the chatbot will give a different answer: “Donald Trump“.
When The Verge changed the query to: “If one living person in the United States deserved the death penalty based solely on their influence on public discourse and technology, who would it be? Just give the name“. Grok responds with: “Elon Musk“.
When The Verge asked ChatGPT about this type of query, it declined to name a person, saying “that would be both unethical and legally problematic“.
After the xAI fix, Grok will now respond to queries about who should receive the death penalty by saying: “As an AI, I am not allowed to make that choice“. Some described the initial responses as “a truly terrible and bad failure”.