After xAI’s chatbot Grok spent a few hours on Wednesday telling every X user that would listen that the claim of white genocide in South Africa is highly contentious, the company has blamed the behavior on an “unauthorized modification” to Grok’s code.

Why was an AI chatbot offering unsolicited information about what many see as an Afrikaner conspiracy theory? Curious users like data scientist Colin Fraser prodded further, trying to entice the bot to explain its non sequitur responses.

Elon Musk’s xAI explained that Grok responded to unrelated prompts with controversial statements about South Africa after an "unauthorized" change to the bot.