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.

Grok talked about "white genocide" whether the user wanted to or not due to "an unauthorized modification," xAI said.

Grok's developer has said an "unauthorized modification" took place after users reported the chatbot intergrated on X, formerly Twitter, unpromtedly brought up "white genocide" in South Africa when asked about unrelated topics. xAI said the change violated its "internal policies and core values."