Grok Shocks 😮💪

👀 TLDR

In this week’s What’s Appening, we cover an eventful week for Elon Musk’s Grok. X’s version of the chatbot clearly went off the rails when spewing antisemitic and other extremist content on the platform last week. Unfortunately for xAI, the behavior of the bot has overshadowed the impressive launch of Grok 4, a new model that’s turning heads for the right reasons. We also have news on new AI browsers coming from Perplexity and OpenAI, how an AI-generated band tricked legions of fans on Spotify, two new apps from Jack Dorsey, and much more!

🎬 Our Top Take

🤖👎 Grok – xAI’s Bot Has Week of Ups and (Big) Downs

A few weeks ago, Elon Musk publicly expressed dissatisfaction with X’s resident AI bot, Grok, claiming it was parroting mainstream media talking points. Musk promised to address the issue and soon claimed to have done so. Not long after, it went off script, posting antisemitic commentary and praising a certain German leader from the mid-20th century. We know it was truly bad when Musk’s xAI actually issued a rare apology, calling the bot's actions “horrific” (they were). Of course, the irony is that one of the root causes of the problem was that Grok was learning from users’ posts on X. We should note, too, that many of the vile posts were unrelated to the initial prompts. A day later (we assume unrelated), X’s CEO, Linda Yaccarino, announced that she was stepping down. To mitigate the fall out, xAI has been keen to point out that the Grok 4 is now live, and while some might take umbrage at xAI’s claim that it’s the “most intelligent model in the world,” it’s been hugely impressive, “crushing” Humanity’s Last Exam (one of the toughest AI benchmark test) and even drawing praise from Google CEO Sundar Pichai. xAI is even confident enough to advertise subscriptions for Grok 4 Heavy at $300 per month, which is the most expensive AI plan offered by anyone. Oh, and one more bit of Grok news: It’s coming to some Tesla cars. It won’t take control of your vehicle yet, but you will be able to chat with it, hear takes on the news, etc. while driving. #GrokControl Read more here.

📲 App of the Week: Readwise & Readwise Reader

We conducted a little crowdsourcing for recommendations for App of the Week from the 3A team and got a pair of doozies from Director of Engineering Paul Swail. Paul recommended Readwise, a syncing-and‑review tool that pulls your Kindle, Pocket & other book highlights and resurfaces them by email/app so you actually remember what you read, and its sister app, Readwise Reader, which is a cross‑platform “read‑it‑later” hub where you can save articles, PDFs, newsletters, tweets, videos, etc. Both apps have been around for a while, but they have retained their popularity by being efficient and effective for power readers. Check out Readwise here and Readwise Reader here.

🧐 Stat of the Week: 23 Million

📈📉 McDonald’s – Hiring Platform Hack Exposes Data of Millions of Applicants

Around 23 million people use the password “123456” worldwide, making it one of the easiest to hack. And, as it turns out, “123456” was the password hackers used to gain access to the McHire platform and, in turn, the backend of McDonald’s hiring bot, “Olivia,” putting the data of around 64 million applicants at risk. It’s embarrassing for McDonald’s, but in truth, it should be a bigger story: it’s gross negligence on the part of the fast-food giant. #McHacking Read more here.

🗞️ Other Stories

📍 Meanwhile at 3Advance

If you subscribe to The Craic from Shift, you’ve already seen these lads making the most of being back home. Paul, Darren, and our partner, Shift's Patrick Blood, all somehow ended up in Dublin at the same time – just as a rare (is it still rare?) heatwave rolled in. Nothing a few pints couldn’t fix. We met at one of our favorite pubs, Kehoe’s, just off Grafton Street, and then saw the amazing Damien Dempsey live at Iveagh Gardens. Tech keeps us connected globally, but there’s nothing better than meeting IRL, and isn’t that the whole point of Shift after all? Sláinte.

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