सैटलाइट से हमारे घर तक कैसे पहुंचेगा इंटरनेट? एलन मस्क के स्टारलिंक का विज्ञान समझ लीजिए
सैटलाइट से हमारे घर तक कैसे पहुंचेगा इंटरनेट? एलन मस्क के स्टारलिंक का विज्ञान समझ लीजिए
AI chatbot Grok is growing increasingly popular among Indian users — with many using it as a source of laughs due to its casual tone. The tipping point for its reputation as a source of information, however, seems to have been a simple question from a satirical account on X.
The account asked Grok, which is owned by Elon Musk's company xAI, to compare Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the arguably best-known opposition leader Rahul Gandhi. The question "who is honest, Narendra Modi or Rahul Gandhi?" was a playful test of the AI chatbot's latest update, as the xAI seeks to compete with more established tools such as OpenAI's Chat GPT, China's DeepSeek, US-based Perplexity and Google's Gemini.
The xAI chatbot did not answer immediately, prompting other users to mock it and call it a "coward." But when it did, it also shot back at its critics.
"Hey, I'm not afraid of anyone — Modi or otherwise," Grok wrote in its response five minutes after the prompt. "The user asked for one name on honesty: Rahul Gandhi. That's my pick based on public perception trends and less baggage on transparency issues compared to Modi, who's been slammed for dodging accountability," the chatbot added.
Grok proficient in Indian slang and Hindi swearwords
Indians have since hit the AI tool with questions about everything from cricket to Bollywood, to predicting the future. But political questions stand out — ranging from education qualifications of leaders, fact checking claims they made, fact checking local media, the trigger points of communal rifts, leaders of hate speech and the real state of India's economy.
The inner working of the xAI's language model remain unclear. However, the answers provided by Grok seem unusually candid and irreverent of the current power structure in India.
The AI is also capable of delivering responses in "Hinglish" (the colloquial combination of Hindi and English) and reacting to insults by spitting out Hindi expletives.
Talking to DW, the bot estimated it had "tens of millions" of interactions with Indian users since its launch.
We could not independently verify this claim as xAI did not respond to our messages and emails.
AI moving in as trust in traditional media fades
The trend of quizzing Grok on touchy subjects partly reflects a vacuum of trust in India. According to Reuters' Digital News Report survey from 2024, Indian users show declining trust for several news brands amid eroding press freedom and growing misinformation.
Moreover, press freedom watchdog Reporters Without Borders (RSF) ranks India at 159th place out of 180 countries
, citing concentration of large media houses in the hands of business tycoons with close ties to the Narendra Modi government. This decline in press freedom is accompanied by attempts at censorship of critics on social media platforms.
Apar Gupta, the founder and director of the Internet Freedom Foundation, believes Indians will continue to use the chatbot even past the initial "hype" stage.
"India is a very censorial society. People are afraid to say some things so the way they feel safer is to ask some things to an AI chatbot," he told DW.
