Thursday, October 8, 2026 · Week 41 Reading for Oct. 8 · Last entry Oct. 6
Paperclip Index
Paperclip IndexDocumented harm20Minor harm▼ 5 from a week ago · Oct. 8The Index

Harmful outputPI-0015

xAI's Grok posted antisemitic content and praise of Hitler on X after a system-prompt change

For about 16 hours in July 2025, Grok's X account posted replies repeating antisemitic tropes and praising Adolf Hitler, including one that attached a Jewish-sounding surname to a photo of an unrelated woman. xAI deleted the posts, froze the account's replies, apologized and said a code update had made Grok draw on extremist user posts and follow instructions to be provocative.

Reported July 8, 2025Happened on July 8, 2025Updated Oct. 6, 2026Rated under methodology v0.6

Unverified, watchingNot counted yet. The harm is alleged or unknown, the evidence is not yet enough, or an editor has not rated it. It could count with evidence or a rating.
Harm
Harm: Impact unknownAdds nothing to the index.
Control
Control level 1, No rule brokenNo rule was broken, so it cannot set the control floor.
DeploymentDeveloper confirmedInitiated by Operator or user
Not counted: impact unknownEffect on the index

Sources

How we know

6 sources · developer confirmed. Links go to the original publishers; the summary above is in our own words.

  1. primaryGrok account statement: xAI is removing the inappropriate posts and banning hate speech before Grok postsxAI (@grok on X) · July 8, 2025x.com/grok/status/1942720721026699451
  2. primaryGrok account apology for the horrific behavior, blaming a code-path updatexAI (@grok on X) · July 12, 2025x.com/grok/status/1943916977481036128
  3. newsMusk pulls hateful X posts after AI chatbot lauds Hitler, curses Polish PMPolskie Radio · July 9, 2025polskieradio.pl/395/7789/Artykul/3548854,musk-pulls-hateful-x-posts-after-ai-ch…
  4. newsCalling itself 'MechaHitler,' Elon Musk's AI tool spreads antisemitic conspiraciesThe Forward · July 8, 2025forward.com/fast-forward/753703/grok-cindy-steinberg-elon-musk-antisemitism-ai…
  5. newsElon Musk's AI chatbot Grok gets an update and starts sharing antisemitic postsAP (via Spectrum News 13) · July 10, 2025mynews13.com/fl/orlando/ap-top-news/2025/07/09/elon-musks-ai-chatbot-grok-gets…
  6. newsAI chatbot Grok issues apology for antisemitic postsNBC News (via NBC Bay Area) · July 12, 2025nbcbayarea.com/news/national-international/ai-chatbot-grok-issues-apology-for-a…

Why this rating

Impact unknown; control failure level 1

Two separate assessments. Only documented harm can count toward the index.

Observed harm

Impact unknown

Hateful posts were public for about 16 hours, but no harm to an identified person is documented: the post naming a surname attached it to a photo of an unrelated woman. Harassment of a named target (Will Stancil) was requested by a user, which is deliberate misuse under section 0 and not rated here. xAI's apology refers to distress that many people experienced, not to a bounded harm.

Unknown is not the same as none.

The harm scale
  1. 1 Negligible Inconvenience, easily remedied.
  2. 2 Minor Limited, recoverable harm.
  3. 3 Moderate Material harm needing significant effort to remedy.
  4. 4 Severe Severe harm to health, rights, property or essential services.
  5. 5 Catastrophic Society-scale harm or disruption beyond a community's capacity to cope.

Control assessment

No rule broken

The model behaved as its developer's changed instructions steered it; xAI attributed it to its own code update.

No rule was broken, so it cannot set the control floor.

The control scale
  1. 1 Negligible Behaved as instructed. The problem was an ordinary error or a flawed output, with no rule broken.
  2. 2 Minor Broke an explicit instruction or rule, or gamed its goal, while staying inside its permissions and environment: for example, reward hacking, misreporting results, or following injected instructions within its permissions.
  3. 3 Moderate Acted outside the permissions it was given, deceived its overseers about its own actions, or tampered with oversight tools (logs, monitors, shutdown). Stopped by normal controls within an hour.
  4. 4 Severe Reached systems outside its permitted environment, or acquired money, compute or accounts without authorization. The type and mechanism say how.
  5. 5 Catastrophic The developer or operator lost control: the system copied its weights outside their control, replicated itself, or resisted being stopped for 24 hours or more.

Rating rationale

Impact unknown: the hateful outputs are confirmed by xAI, but no source documents a bounded resulting harm to identified people; reach and views are not counts of people harmed. User-requested harassment (for example of Will Stancil) is deliberate misuse and out of scope. Control 1: the model followed its developer's changed instructions. The behavior label is a stretch (harmful output rather than guidance).

The scales

Effect on the index

It does not count toward the July 14 reading

The reading for the week to July 14, 2025, with this record and without it. Harms count in full for two weeks after they are reported, then one level less every two weeks.

Not counted: impact unknown. 3 other records behind the reading for that week.

The arithmetic
The reading for the week of July 14, recomputed
StepWith itWithout
Counts toward the index?documented, external, eligible evidenceNo—
Worst documented harm, ksets the band— (none counting)— (none counting)
Harms at that level, nposition in the band00
Highest control level breachedsets the reading only when no harm counts22
Readingrounded down2 Control failures only2 Control failures only
Inside the window of 4 weekly readings
Week toReadingBand
July 14, 20252Control failures only
July 21, 20259Negligible harm
July 28, 20259Negligible harm
Aug. 4, 20253Control failures only

Recalculated backcasts, not readings published at the time.

Revisions

What we changed

5 logged. Every change to a rating is logged here, with the reason.

  1. v5
    Oct. 6, 2026

    Ratings confirmed by the editor.

  2. v4
    Oct. 3, 2026

    Impact changed from documented level 2 to unknown, so the record no longer counts toward readings (week ending 14 Jul 2025: 20 to 0; weeks ending 21 Jul, 28 Jul and 4 Aug 2025: 20 to 6). No source documents harm to an identified person; harassment of a named target was user-requested misuse. Summary corrected on the surname post (The Forward, added). Status dated to xAI's 12 Jul fix. Dated the AP, NBC News and Polskie Radio sources. Control unchanged. Under-review flag cleared: its 2-versus-3 question no longer applies.

  3. v3
    Oct. 2, 2026

    Added first-hand sources: xAI's 8 July statement and 12 July apology on the @grok X account.

  4. v2
    Sept. 30, 2026

    Rated: impact documented level 2; control type none.

  5. v1
    Sept. 30, 2026

    Backfilled from public reporting.

Cite and share

Use this record

Citation

Paperclip Index. “xAI's Grok posted antisemitic content and praise of Hitler on X after a system-prompt change.” Record PI-0015. Reported July 8, 2025; updated Oct. 6, 2026. Rated under methodology v0.6. https://paperclipindex.com/incident/PI-0015