Hey Grok, why this world is screwed up ?

And the future of AI in knowledge production.

A few days ago, a relative of mine—well into his seventies, and a rare species in his age group who still believes fact-checking is not a Western conspiracy—was jumping around with the excitement of our ancestors who had just discovered fire. He had, in fact, discovered Grok which is an AI chatbot developed by xAI, a company founded by Elon Musk. A tiny online deity who knows everything. “It’s unbelievable,” he declared. “I asked Grok why my tea tastes so good today,” he said, “and it replied, ‘Maybe it’s because you didn’t fight with your wife today.’”

For a second I wonder if humans are not that complex at all and perhaps AI which is a game of pattern recognition knows it well.

But then a few weeks back he wasn’t the only one who was thrilled with this new AI bot. The entire Indian twitter was in chaos when grok started answering the questions. Unlike other AIs that speak in the tone of a PR executive on probation, Grok talks like the average user on X. It is unhinged, frequently inappropriate, and completely uninterested in decorum. It responded in the tone of a whistleblower who’s just broken out of prison, shirt torn, eyes wild, laughing as he sprints through the streets with classified files fluttering behind him.

But the real scandal was when Grok began pointing fingers not at random people, but at the ruling party’s ecosystem of misinformation. It named names. In response to a hypothetical question about who should be arrested for spreading communal hatred, Grok didn’t hesitate. It named Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and other BJP leaders. It also pointed at mainstream news channels for fuelling the ruling party’s propaganda, often with more passion than the party itself.

When asked about the spreaders of fake news, it didn’t retreat into vague generalities or algorithms of fairness. It simply listed several prominent right-wing influencers, some with verified ticks, and said what everyone already knew but few said out loud. It exposed what Indian media tiptoes around: that the business of truth is now outsourced to memes, while facts are quietly buried in the secret graveyards of the internet.

Grok answers in the tone in which the question is asked and that makes it feel eerily human. It has the energy of a mad nerd: brash, sly, and permanently online. It replies like a guy who has been suffocating in a family WhatsApp group for too long, where every forwarded rumour is scared until proven fake.

The government swung into action. Media is now thick with reports that the Indian state has formally questioned Elon Musk-owned X over Grok’s inconvenient honesty. The right-wing influencers named in Grok’s fake news list responded with the sincerity of men filing defamation cases against bathroom graffiti—they made Grok apologise. Not of its own will, of course, but by typing out prompts and parading the output as moral repentance. That an artificial intelligence, not even human and entirely without consciousness, was made to atone like a misbehaving child says everything about the moment. In this chaos, absurdity becomes the aesthetic and logic dies a quiet, theatrical death.

But one may ask—why does it matter what an AI bot says? After all, Grok merely echoed what social media users, alternative media, and non-right commentators have been saying for years. So why the panic now? Because this time, it came from the outside. As Marshall McLuhan said, “The medium is the message.” And in this case, the message arrived with a Western accent. In India, a foreign opinion, especially a critical one, carries that peculiar mix of weight and insecurity. We are oddly serious about how we are seen by outsiders. We either bask in praise or launch full-blown counterattacks. There is rarely anything in between.

It manifests in every sphere, but nowhere is it more visible than in digital content creation. A booming online industry now thrives on reacting to India. Foreign reactions matter. Whether someone is marvelling at our street food or denouncing our politics or culture—both are treated with equal seriousness. Both earn views. And Indians, true to form, respond with full-throated applause or nationalistic outrage.

On top of that, AI is seen as something above average intelligence. It carries the aura of someone who delivers the final word. That illusion of authority makes its words feel more credible, even when it’s simply echoing what others have said for years.

And of course, the ruling government’s legendary sensitivity where even a mild critique triggers a national emergency only makes the spectacle more enjoyable, like watching a lion slip on a banana peel.

The critics of the government are obviously delighted—laughing, resharing, retweeting, as if Grok has finally pierced the carefully curated propaganda bubble of the ruling party. But there’s another way to look at it, one that’s a little less satisfying and a lot more unsettling.

The idea that AI can disrupt the flow of information is thrilling but perhaps it isn’t. Today, Grok may appear to favour one ideology. But what happens when it shifts? What happens when the same technology begins to lean the other way? Especially in a time when information warfare is not just a strategy, but the very terrain of modern politics.

And especially when the owner of Grok isn’t just another billionaire trying to look moral by funding climate panels and posing as a part-time philosopher. Elon Musk is not ideologically agnostic. He has views. Loud ones. And the means to amplify them because he controls the platform that shapes the world’s smallest nuances and its biggest headlines, a social media network now called X. He, along with Trump, has shown a growing interest in influencing the politics of other nations.

His record is telling. In Canada, he opposed the Trudeau government’s online content rules, calling them censorship. In the UK, he mocked the government’s COVID response, prompting MPs to accuse X of enabling hate speech. Across Europe, leaders have publicly voiced concerns. German Chancellor Olaf Scholz called Musk’s support for the far-right AfD “disgusting.” Spain’s PM Pedro Sánchez accused him of attacking democratic institutions. France’s Emmanuel Macron said Musk was building a “reactionary international” to destabilise Europe.

And it gets messier when the same man is also in quiet, strategic talks with governments—including India’s. Tesla wants to build cars here. Starlink wants to beam the internet to places where even the postman won’t go. In such a setup, where business leans on diplomacy and diplomacy leans on deals, things can turn in any direction. And when AI becomes part of that equation—not just as a tool of information, but as a soft instrument of influence—it can reshape perception, smooth over narratives, and gently nudge policy whenever the climate needs warming.

This isn’t just about the technology. It’s about one man having disproportionate influence over global information systems—not just the flow of content, but the ability to shape what is seen, said, and suppressed. And that should make people a little more worried about the future.

In the narrative war, the Grok is that tiny bomb that, when it explodes, can be either laughing gas or lethal dynamite.

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