Earlier today, Grok showed me how to tell if someone is a “good scientist,” just from their demographics. For starters, according to a formula devised by Elon Musk’s chatbot, they have to be a white, Asian, or Jewish man.

A former professor and the founder of his own AI company, Howard noticed that if he asked Grok about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the chatbot seemed to cross-check Elon’s tweets before regurgitating an answer.

During xAI’s launch of Grok 4 on Wednesday night, Elon Musk said — while live-streaming the event on his social media platform, X — that his AI company’s ultimate goal was to develop a “maximally truth-seeking AI.