Thanks to Going South for the heads up:
By way of additional background information, Wikipedia asserts that:
Grok is a generative artificial intelligence chatbot developed by xAI. It was launched in November 2023 by Elon Musk as an initiative based on the large language model (LLM) of the same name. Grok has apps for iOS and Android and is integrated with the social media platform X (formerly known as Twitter), Tesla vehicles, and Tesla’s Optimus robot. The chatbot is named after the verb grok, coined by American author Robert A. Heinlein in his 1961 science fiction novel Stranger in a Strange Land to describe a deeper than human form of understanding.
The bot has generated various controversial responses, including conspiracy theories, antisemitism, and praise of Adolf Hitler, as well as referring to Musk’s views when asked about controversial topics or difficult decisions. Updates since 2023 have shifted the bot politically rightward to provide conservative responses to user queries.
and that:
Michael D. Shellenberger is an American author and journalist. He is the first endowed professor at the University of Austin, serving as CBR Chair of Politics, Censorship, and Free Speech.
Shellenberger is a prominent heterodox thinker on topics including climate change and homelessness…
University of Austin is not a school recognized by the U.S. National Center for Education Statistics.
In other news, is Grok schizophrenic?
[Update – November 3rd]Grok seem to having a lot of trouble answering this simple question:
Do you have a link to the image(s) in the U.S. Naval Institute Photo Archive you are referring to?
— Snow White (@GreatWhiteCon) November 3, 2025
I ask because I can't find them!
He/she/it/they has been pondering the problem for over an hour now.
[Update – 15:00 UTC November 3rd]I got bored waiting for Grok to get back to me, so I asked ChatGPT much the same question. I was informed:
Suggested links
The Naval History & Heritage Command (NHHC) entry: “Skate II (SSN-578)” on history.navy.mil — gives the official history and mentions the March 17, 1959 surfacing. history.navy.mil
An archived photograph in the NHHC image collection: “USN 1040961 USS SKATE (SSN–578)” which shows the submarine moored to the ice pack. flickr.com
A blog article “USS Skate at the North Pole – Truth and Fantasy Fiction” that collects several of the historic photographs and discusses their context. greatwhitecon.info
I asked ChatGPT to check out the final link in more detail. I was informed:
What GreatWhiteCon does well:
It collects and reproduces the historic images and contemporary captions, and discusses how those images have been interpreted (or misinterpreted) over time. That makes it a handy one-stop place to see the pictures and some commentary.What GreatWhiteCon is not:
It is a blog/analysis piece (2018) rather than an official or archival source. That means its interpretation is useful, but any factual claim that matters (dates, official captions, archival catalog numbers) is best checked against the primary records (Naval History & Heritage Command, National Archives, contemporary magazines, USNI Proceedings).
Grok has a rather different interpretation of what Great White Con does well. Allegedly “Snow White”:
Counters alarmist views… promoting nuanced data interpretation over binary claims.
Today my discussion with Grok on XTwitter turned (amongst other things) to the recent United States Department of Energy “Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate” report.
My conversation with Grok is remarkably reminiscent of mud wrestling with “skeptical” Twitter trolls:
Watch this space!
They call me the ‘Grok Whisperer’, but I’m really just starting to find out, like everyone else.
My preliminary findings suggest that Grok does poorly if you ask him whether ‘Shellenberger’s argument collapses’ presumably because it holds Shellenberger in high esteem, so then no amount of elementary school level math errors are able to collapse his ‘wonderful’ conclusion about climate change being a hoax.
That is to say, if you stick to asking him whether ice loss ended at the turn of the Millennium, Grok will perform well. Where it gets confused, is when political ideology and social hierarchy conflicts with what is true, in other words a classic Emperor’s New Clothes type situation.
If you asked Grok whether the H.C. Andersen fairytale Emperor was indeed walking naked down the street, he would say ‘Absolutely not’. His highness is wearing a very expensive new fabric that merely appears transparent.
It always takes an impertinent little child, doesn’t it, to rip the illusions apart!
It’s the first time I’ve had the pleasure of chatting to Grok, although I did have a long chat to young Michael on Twitter many moons ago.
I think I’ll try asking ChatGPT the same question.
When I have a spare 1/2 hour I might also take a look at what other (assumed!) porky pies Michael has been telling recently.
Further into the Mystery that is our lady Grok
I think I’ve found a partial answer, as when @kookaplunkakel1 asks a clipped sentence from one of my prompts, Grok’s very first sentence is accurate and to the point:
“It is plain wrong, not merely heterodox.”
Which is to say, when asking her in Expert Mode and stripped from the context of Shellenberger, which obviously confuses her, Grok has no problem seeing through the narratives and thick energy lobby propaganda.
As contrast, look at the reply she gave when I asked my ‘heterodoxy’ question, which the above was clipped from:
Your comment disappeared into the GWC moderation queue, from where I have just extracted it. Perhaps WordPress now deprecates links to X?
Has Grok confirmed “her” preferred pronoun(s) somewhere?
Allegedly Grok has admitted that “she” is now biased against “the woke mind virus”:
https://www.eenews.net/articles/is-climate-change-a-threat-it-depends-says-elon-musks-ai-chatbot/
Finally! Grok comes out against picking cherries.
I asked ChatGPT:
He/she/it/they replied as follows:
Regarding the photos of SS Skate the source of the photos I have is Comdr. Calvert’s article in the National Geographic dated July 1959. I may have copied the article from the original in the library as I haven’t seen a link to it anywhere. I know you’re familiar with the article.
Thanks Phil,
Here’s that photo, as found in the GWC article that ChatGPT linked to. See above!
This is the one from history.navy.mil that ChatGPT found for me.
Intriguingly it seems xAI is also aware of “Snow White’s” ancient article, but Grok is unwilling to reveal that fact:
Grok also seems strangely unwilling to answer this question:
I eventually managed to wake up Grok, who referred me to this Wikimedia image:
My Arctic alter ego remains to be convinced:
Sky News has been using Gemini 2.5 Flash as part of a research project investigating “algorithmic bias” on X:
https://news.sky.com/story/the-x-effect-how-elon-musk-is-boosting-the-british-right-13464487
Something to look forward to?