It wasn't not a result of system prompt. When you fine tune a model on a large corpus of right-leaning text don't be surprised when neo-nazi tendencies inevitably emerge.
If that one sentence in the system prompt is all it takes to steer a model into a complete white supremacy meltdown at the drop of a hat, I think that's a problem with the model!
It still hasn't been turned back on, and that repo is provided by xAI themselves, so you need to trust that they're being honest with the situation.
The timing in relation to the Grok 4 launch is highly suspect. It seems much more like a publicity stunt. (Any news is good news?)
But, besides that, if that prompt change unleashed the very extreme Hitler-tweeting and arguably worse horrors (it wasn't all "haha, I'm mechahitler"), it's a definite sign of some really bizarre fine tuning on the model itself.
These disgruntled employee defenses aren't valid, IMO.
I remember when Ring, for years, including after being bought by Meta, had huge issues with employee stalking. Every employee had access to every camera. It happened multiple times, or, at least, to our knowledge.
But that's not a people problem, that's a technology problem. This is what happens when you store and transit video over the internet and centralize it, unencrypted. This is what happens when you have piss-poor permission control.
What I mean is, it says a lot about the product if "disgruntled employees" are able to sabotage it. You're a user, presumably paying - you should care about that. Because, if we all wait around for the day humans magically start acting good all the time, we'll be waiting for the heat death of the universe.
I really find it ironic that some people are still pushing the idea about the right dog whistling when out-and-out anti-semites on the left control major streaming platforms (twitch) and push major streamers who repeatedly encourage their viewers to harm jewish people through barely concealed threats (Hasan Piker and related).
The masks are off and it's pretty clear what reality is.
