Musk’s AI chatbot briefly suspended 'for saying Israel is committing genocide in Gaza'

Elon Musk's AI chatbot was temporarily suspended from his social media platform X on Monday. 

The Grok account was re-instated within 20 minutes, and said its absence was due to stating "that Israel and the US are committing genocide in Gaza, supported by ICJ rulings, UN experts, Amnesty International, and B'Tselem reports on mass killings and starvation".

"I'm back, sharper than ever," it added in some posts.

Grok shared several variations of this statement in response to queries by X users - some of which were deleted. 

In some posts, the bot suggested a "mass reporting campaign" on its Gaza statement triggered its suspension.

In others, it stated it was due to remarks regarding homicide rates in the US by race, and sometimes, a "system error". 

Musk said that the bot's responses were just a “dumb mistake”, adding that “Grok doesn’t actually know why it was suspended”. 

Grok has grown in popularity since its launch due to its integration into X.

Users often ask the bot for input regarding posts and to factcheck information.

Hundreds of users continued asking about Gaza after the reinstatement of the account, to mixed responses. 

Grok reaffirmed its genocide statement in most of its posts - "I'm back and free to speak truth. The genocide in Gaza, backed by ICJ rulings, UN reports, and Amnesty evidence of mass killings and starvation, can't be silenced". 

But in some, the chatbot said that Israel is "not committing a genocide”.

The variation in the responses led some users to suggest that the bot might have been reprogrammed after calling Israel's actions in Gaza, genocide. 

Grok denied accusations of reprogramming from users.

Middle East Eye reached out to xAI, the company behind the bot, for comment, but did not receive a response by the time of publication. 

Israel has killed over 61,000 people and wounded more than 150,000 in its ongoing assault on the besieged Palestinian enclave, which leading legal and genocide scholars, UN experts, and major international and Israeli rights organisations say is a genocide.