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Comment by pmarreck | Hacker News Reader

So basically, nothing that actually affects working with it in August 2026. Got it.

Facebook has a far longer (and worse) laundry list of offenses and I'm sure you still use it. Or Threads, or Instagram.

> My organization has outright banned Grok

That's too bad, as it's currently the only model that won't consistently flag honest good-actor security questions, in my experience. So I'd ask you who you work for, but I wouldn't want to expose them to extra security scrutiny. ;)

Oh, there's also this: https://artificialanalysis.ai/articles/grok-4-6-benchmarks-a...

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Your experience is not reflective of mine at all, or my colleagues’, so I would check out the better SOTA models out again. I use codex extensively for security-related work - much of which is _overtly_ offensive - without issue. Same for Claude, minus Fable, after going through their approval process. I also went through OpenAI’s, but theirs was just basic KYC and instant. GPT-5.6 in Codex has produced full chain RCEs, ASLR bypass and all, in ubiquitous software with nothing more than a prompt and a few days of crunching. Things you’d be paying $$$ for just last year, now produced on not much more than a whim & a prompt. I can’t speak for Grok’s abilities wrt these types of things, but for your own sake, take the 5 mins it takes to complete the verification processes for OAI/Anthropic if you work in security.

Also, assuming people use Meta/FB/Instagram here, of all places, is certainly an assumption - very poor fodder for a “gotcha”. I find Elon’s political activities and the social beliefs he uses his purchased platform to spread loathsome and daft, and it will take a lot more than “almost as good on benchmarks but cheaper” to let my fiscal tendencies outweigh my moral ones. I’ve held similar beliefs for Zuck for far longer and have cut everything marred by the slime of his tentacles out of my digital life for years, as _many_ here have also done. Accusing someone of uneven application of moral influence over their decisions when you only have information relating to a single decision is poor argumentation.

If you find what Musk spreads palatable, or maintain distance and a lack of awareness, or just don’t care - fine. But don’t confuse the hill you chose with a moral high ground. Any snark you launch from such a position is likely going uphill, and then back down.

> after going through their approval process

Are you really trying to compare my experience as a NON-certified security professional, with yours?

Mostly understood re: the rest. Musk knows what damage he caused, and he knows it likely because it hit him in the dollars.

The chinese are also mostly fine with good-actor security questions. Maybe even to comfortable.

too*

You are only strawmanning around.

Apparently you are unable to coprehend that other peole have values.

*comprehend

*people

Also, that's not what strawmanning is. I never denied that Grok didn't act bizarrely offensively over a fucking year and a half ago (so did other LLMs, btw... and so have many other experiments over the years, remember Microsoft's?), which is an eternity in this space. I know Musk is polarizing, but give me a fucking break. Don't assume malice when social incompetence serves as an exculpatory factor.

Apparently, you are unable to comprehend that your opinion of things has been tainted away from the truth by an algorithm incentivized to outrage you. That what you call your "values" are, in fact, driven by someone else's greed for eyeball attention. Do you think civilizations that become anti-Western-values over time are more driven by facts and empiricism, or by catchy slogans that twist the truth and a media that uses cherry-picked examples which immediately trigger emotions?

So i do care that Elon Musk is responsible for USAID shutdown. The richest man on the world shuts down human support so abruptly that he causes real humans to die.

Elon Musk, as the richest person on the planet, bought himself a propaganda platform he controls and started to finger around in democracy.

Its a lot more than 'just' CSAM.

It disheartens me that if I want to find the most objective lowdown on the USAID and governmental meddling thing, I can get it trivially from an AI, and people will immediately dismiss it as slop, even if it provides receipts for all of its assertions:

https://chatgpt.com/share/6a7e8991-399c-83ea-bc65-2cf9a536fa...

Why don't more people do this, or trust it? Do they not want to get upset when their sacred cows are toppled? Do they not realize that getting their cows toppled actually makes them more correct? I don't know, and I'm starting to not care.

My statement to you is: I don't care what you believe or care about. I only care if you have actually faced the evidence against your beliefs and care. If they still stand after that from a good-faith point of view, then you can have them. Otherwise, they are just "partisan", and I have zero interest in partisan politics anymore, because it's way too bullshit-infused at this point, driven by a media whose profit only comes from outrage, and mired in people who are obsessed with identity politics.

(A friend once told me, "you are the most persuaded by evidence and argument of anyone I know... and that's a sad thing for humanity," so there's that.)

That said... My personal take (since I find this particular point unaddressed by the larger conversation around this) is that a lot of intangible value was lost by USAID going away, such as American goodwill. This then turns into fodder for terrorists... Which is, of course, very nearsighted. And the bill for that may come due one day.

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