Elon Musk’s AI Praised Hitler. Now He Needs It to Train Your Youngsters

With Elon Musk, controversy and public relations campaigns usually chase each other. He appears to love it that method. Simply days after his Grok chatbot made headlines for producing antisemitic content material and reward for the Nazis, the billionaire introduced he desires the identical AI to assist increase your youngsters.

Elon Musk’s newest AI announcement was not about constructing a extra highly effective, all figuring out intelligence. As an alternative, it was about making a smaller, safer one.

“We’re going to make Child Grok @xAI,” he posted on X (previously Twitter) on July 20, including, “an app devoted to child pleasant content material.”

We’re going to make Child Grok @xAI, an app devoted to kid-friendly content material

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) July 20, 2025

He didn’t present additional particulars. Dubbed “Child Grok,” the brand new app guarantees a household pleasant model of Musk’s AI assistant, positioned as a studying and leisure instrument for youngsters. However given Grok’s troubled historical past and Musk’s personal combative strategy to content material moderation, what number of mother and father would belief this new creation with their children?

Preliminary reactions to the announcement on X have been overwhelmingly adverse.

“Cease,” one person merely wrote. “Unhealthy concept. Youngsters needs to be outdoors enjoying & daydreaming, not consuming AI slop,” one other person reacted. A 3rd person commented, “Seems like a horrible concept that may solely go disastrously mistaken.”

Cease

— The Dank Knight 🦇 (@capeandcowell) July 20, 2025

Seems like a horrible concept that may solely go disastrously mistaken.

— Hazel Appleyard (@HazelAppleyard_) July 20, 2025

The timing of the Child Grok announcement seems to be no coincidence. Grok has been embroiled in a sequence of controversies. In early July, the chatbot sparked outrage for spouting antisemitic rhetoric and praising Adolf Hitler. Just a few days later, xAI launched a brand new model, SuperGrok, which included a function known as “Companions.” Customers rapidly complained that the avatars for these companions have been overly sexualized and crossed a line.

On the floor, “Child Grok” is a logical product extension. However considered towards the backdrop of the controversies which have outlined its grownup model, the announcement seems to be much less like a easy enterprise growth and extra like a strategic and essential pivot. That is Musk’s redemption play, his try to sanitize a controversial AI by entrusting it with probably the most delicate viewers of all: youngsters.

The issue for Musk and xAI is that the unique Grok, designed to be an edgy, humorous different to what he sees as overly “woke” chatbots, has continuously stumbled. It has been criticized for its unpredictable nature, a bent to generate biased or factually incorrect data, and an “anti institution” character that may veer into inappropriate or conspiratorial territory. For a lot of, Grok is seen not as a dependable supply of data however as a digital reflection of its creator’s chaotic on-line persona; a strong instrument that lacks constant guardrails.

“Child Grok” is the proposed resolution. By making a walled backyard of “child pleasant content material,” Musk is making an attempt to show that his AI enterprise might be tamed and trusted. The transfer creates a compelling company narrative: after constructing a flawed and unruly AI for adults, the controversial tech mogul is now apparently turning his consideration to defending youngsters, aiming to construct a secure, instructional instrument that may win over skeptical mother and father.

A profitable “Child Grok” may rehabilitate your complete Grok model, demonstrating that xAI can act responsibly. It could additionally present an entry level into the immensely profitable and influential market of youngsters’s training and know-how, an area at the moment dominated by established gamers with way more household pleasant reputations.

The stakes of this enterprise are immense. By focusing on youngsters, Musk is voluntarily getting into probably the most scrutinized enviornment of AI growth. The dialog instantly shifts to urgent issues about digital security, information privateness, and the profound affect AI may have on the subsequent technology’s growth. Can an organization whose ethos is rooted in a maximalist interpretation of free speech really construct the filters and safeguards essential to guard younger minds? Mother and father will likely be asking whether or not the identical firm that champions unmoderated discourse might be trusted to curate a secure studying atmosphere.

When Google introduced final Could that it will roll out its AI chatbot Gemini for customers beneath 13, a coalition of shopper advocates and baby security specialists, together with Fairplay and the Middle for On-line Security, asked the corporate to droop the choice. They cited the “AI chatbot’s unaddressed, important dangers to younger youngsters.”

“AI chatbots and different generative AI merchandise pose elevated dangers to younger youngsters,” the coalition wrote in a letter to Google CEO Sundar Pichai. “Youngsters have issue understanding the distinction between an AI chatbot and a human, and AI chatbots can simply trick a toddler into trusting it.”

There are additionally broader issues about privateness. xAI has not specified whether or not “Child Grok” will accumulate or retain utilization information from baby customers, or what sort of parental controls will likely be in place. For a technology of oldsters already uneasy about display time and algorithmic affect, the concept of letting “Child Grok” work together with a toddler could also be a tough promote regardless of how sanitized the content material.

There may be additionally the query of tone. Musk’s private model, usually combative, cynical, and steeped in web irony, appears at odds with the type of earnest, reliable picture required for instructional youngsters’s tech. If Grok was born as a type of Reddit troll in chatbot kind, can “Child Grok” convincingly play the function of Massive Fowl?

This effort places Musk’s xAI on the heart of one of many tech trade’s greatest challenges: making highly effective AI know-how secure and helpful for society. “Child Grok” is extra than simply an app; it’s a public check case for xAI’s dedication to accountability. Successful may redefine the corporate’s picture and construct a basis of belief. A failure, nevertheless, can be catastrophic, not solely confirming the worst fears about Grok but in addition damaging the general public’s already fragile belief within the function of AI in our every day lives.

Finally, the launch of “Child Grok” is a excessive threat, excessive reward gamble. It’s an try to unravel a PR drawback with a product, betting {that a} secure haven for youths could make the chaotic world of grownup AI appear extra manageable. The world will likely be watching to see if that is the unlikely starting of a extra accountable chapter for Musk’s AI ambitions, or just one other catastrophe ready to occur.