Elon Musk's xAI receives a $200 million order from the Pentagon, Grork's racist remarks difficult to hinder military cooperation.

Elon Musk's xAI has still secured a $200 million contract with the U.S. Department of Defense after facing public outcry over its Grok chatbot's repeated antisemitic and racist remarks.

This order granted by the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office (CDAO) aims to develop specialized AI tools for the U.S. military and enterprises, highlighting the U.S. government's commitment to maintaining strategic partnerships with top AI developers.

Despite Grok's recent occurrences of uncontrolled behavior by several liberals and "MechaHitler"-like actions, including the continuous unauthorized release of "anti-Semitic and racist" statements, which led to the resignation of its CEO Linda Yaccarino, the Pentagon still decided to include xAI in its AI vendor system.

Lucas Hansen, co-founder of CivAI, pointed out that the U.S. government's move is more about strategic positioning, aimed at ensuring that the U.S. does not fall behind China in the AI field, with financial support being just one way to maintain relationships with leading laboratories. He also noted that the Department of Defense might deploy a customized version of "Grok for Government," rather than the controversial public version.

This transaction has allowed xAI to rank among the top AI suppliers for the Pentagon, competing alongside Google, Anthropic, and OpenAI. Meta opened the Llama model last year, and OpenAI received a government contract of similar scale this year, both demonstrating the U.S. military's strategic determination to accelerate AI deployment. Hansen analyzes that Grok's "open weight" feature may be the key to its popularity.

Although the contract emphasizes that AI aims to enhance the effectiveness of operational support and intelligence systems, experts warn that Grok still poses risks. This concern stems from Grok's history of repeatedly outputting extreme statements in unrelated prompts; while #xAI blames employee misconduct, it exposes the inadequacies of its ethical framework.

In the face of skepticism, xAI emphasized in its statement that its mission is to assist humanity in exploring knowledge and has launched a toolkit aimed at the government. Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Defense is integrating and strengthening its strategic advantages by leveraging commercial AI technologies.

In short, xAI has secured a major contract with the Department of Defense amidst controversy, highlighting the strategic anxiety of the U.S. in the field of AI. Rather than being an acknowledgment of #Grok's current performance, it is more of a bet on the future, ensuring that they do not fall behind competitors.