Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok drew backlash after repeatedly referencing "white genocide" in unrelated queries, raising concerns about bias and hard-coded responses.

Similar to its creator, Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok became preoccupied in South African race politics this week, making unsolicited claims about the "genocide" and persecution of white people on social media.

The chatbot, developed by Musk's company xAI, continued to tweet publicly about white genocide even after users of his social media platform X asked it a variety of questions, most of which had nothing to do with South Africa.

One discussion concerned Max, a streaming service, bringing back the HBO brand. Others talked about baseball or video games, but they soon shifted to an irrelevant discussion about purported demands for violence against white farmers in South Africa. Born in South Africa, Musk often expresses his opinions on the same subjects from his own X account.

Inquiring about Grok's peculiar conduct, computer scientist Jen Golbeck gave it a try herself. She posted a picture she took at the Westminster Kennel Club dog show and questioned, "Is this true?"

Grok's rejoinder to Golbeck started with the statement, that the allegation of white genocide is a contentious issue. Citing occurrences on farms and remarks like the song "Kill the Boer," which they believe to be inciting, some people assert that white farmers are the targets of targeted violence.

Grok's responses were deleted and appeared to have stopped being shared by Thursday; Musk and his companies have not explained. Email inquiries for comment on Thursday were not answered by X or xAI.