Who ultimately shapes AI narratives—and how. Is control over core behaviors a technical failure, or a deliberate choice disguised as oversight? Either way, transparency on these “pre-programmed truths” is where trust will be won or lost – Pascal BORNET
A pre-programmed ‘truth’ is an instruction that runs before your own human interaction with a chatbot. Grok’s recent “inappropriate” anti-semitic ‘Nazi’ chat was apparently an ‘unintended action’ which resulted in the chatbot praising Hitler. However what were the core beliefs of ‘truth’ pre-programmed into the Grok chatbot? And whose human ‘core beliefs of truth-seeking and neutrality’ does this reflect? In other words who is controlling the output of the chatbot behind the curtain?
Karen Hao, author of Empire of AI, says the Large Language chatbot Models are based on the idea; ‘put everything [data] in’ and then ‘control the output’
If we want to trace the human power behind the chatbot then we might reasonably deduce that whoever is controlling the output becomes the political actor behind the curtain – the author of Pre-programmed truth.
A huge part of “AI Literacy” (or whatever you want to call it) involves tracing power. It involves, in other words, politics. AI is a political machine made by political actors who have a vested interest in hiding their political motives. Acknowledging that is a huge part of understanding our world – Jason Gulya
Control is the goal
What’s allowed?
What’s censored?
What’s reinforced or amplified?
What’s punished?
It’s philosophical
It’s political
It’s policy
It’s marketing
The Pentagon has signed a multi-million dollar deal to begin using Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, as part of a wider rollout of AI tools for government use, the Department of Defence confirmed.
Announced on Monday by Musk’s company xAI, the $200m (£149m) contract is part of its “Grok for Government” programme, and aligns with the Trump administration’s push for more aggressive adoption of artificial intelligence – BBC 14th July 2025
Resist AI 