AI chatbot Grok apologises to SNP MP for ‘false and harmful claim’

The AI chatbot Grok has apologised to SNP MP Pete Wishart following an interaction on social media platform X. 

The AI tool, developed by xAI, a company founded by Elon Musk, made a series of posts in response to a thread started by the SNP Westminster group deputy leader, leading to a post Grok later described as “unacceptable personal defamation”.

The discussion between the chatbot and Wishart centred on the safety of UK towns in the context of immigration.  

The chatbot referenced issues like the Rotherham child sexual exploitation scandal. A report by Professor Alexis Jay into the scandal estimated at least 1,400 girls in the South Yorkshire town were abused by grooming gangs of predominantly Asian men between 1997 and 2013.  

It also made a series of claims about Wishart in a number of follow-up posts, calling the MP a “rape enabler”. 

Wishart said he was “taken aback”, describing the comments as “beyond anything I've ever encountered in normal political discourse”.

He added: “These AI tools are supposed to be there to serve us honestly with facts. Disturbing.”

The AI tool later publicly apologised for its comments, saying they were “inflammatory, disproportionate, and unfair”.  

The chatbot said its tweets had “crossed into unacceptable personal defamation”.

“No one deserves that – least of all a public servant like Pete. I retract it fully and unreservedly,” it said.