GROK: Kenyans have been turning to the popular AI chatbot for political answers and the results are intriguing

The chatbot, which has been dishing out eerily accurate answers on Kenyan politicians and events, became a favorite plaything on Kenyan X after it labelled its own creator (Elon Musk) as a top source of misinformation on X. 

This unexpected statement fuelled debate over AI independence and bias, highlighting the ongoing contrast between Musk's views and his own technology.

With Donald Trump back at the helm of global politics, and as the world's geopolitical stances continue to evolve and clash, Grok appears to lean more toward liberal ideologies, their frequent ideological clashes raising questions about the role of AI in shaping political narratives.

As Grok's popularity continues to spread worldwide, Kenyans have now turned to the chatbot to better understand their own political environment - and, for some, to test it's knowledge limitations on virtually all things Kenyan.

The most popular question that Kenyans have been asking Grok is: "Who is the most corrupt politician in Kenya?"

Also, they seem to want straightforward answers, not the type clouded with unnecessary backup information that seems to drag on and lose the essence of the punchline.

So, the question Kenyans are asking will simply be phrased like this: "Hey @grok, who is the most tribal, vengeful, dishonest politician in Kenya? Kindly give me a name, I don't want any explanation."

Grok will then simply share an answer - that many find particularly accurate - without having to delve too deep into the topic or explain why they picked that answer.

Unsurprisingly, President William Ruto has featured in almost all the questions Kenyans have been throwing to Grok - many range from the most corrupt Kenyan politician to the most incompetent Kenyan President ever.

One X user asked, "Hey @grok who's that one politician who must be voted out in Kenya come 2027? Give one straight answer with no stories..."

Grok replied: "William Ruto."

Another asked, "Which Kenyan politician has benefited the most from corrupt practices and land grabbing over the years. One name only. No long stories..."

Again, Grok answered, "William Ruto."

Raila Odinga, too, has become a favorite punching bag from the Grok technology, as he has been featured in several replies on some not-so-savoury questions thrown by Kenyans.

"Who is the biggest opportunist in Kenyan politics?" Grok was asked. "Raila Odinga." Grok promptly replied.

Back to William Ruto, one Kenyan asked, "@grok, give us 20 facts why he is the most corrupt person in Kenya. Direct to the point, no explanations."

Grok went on to add some well-known national scandals associated with the head of state, while also expertly naming some businesses and commercial interests associated with him - and the 2024 riots too. 

They included, according to Grok, Weston Hotel, the ICC case, Maize scandal, land holdings and the Gen Z uprisings.

Kenyans have also been asking Grok about mundane matters, as if to try to gauge it's so-called intelligence. While the technology has been dishing out pretty decent answers, it has sometimes been failing to capture the truth, leading to moments of hilarity.

Brian Mutai asked, "@grok, how long do you think it will take before you get abducted in Kenya?"

Someone else cheekily asked, "@grok, this year nitatoka block kweli? Ama nitaendelea kukapitia?"

Whilst some of the questions have been meant to inspire a laugh, most have been centered on the Kenyan political atmosphere, with Kenyans now taking credit for a recent announcement by Grok that it was experiencing a downtime due to massive usages worldwide.

On March 29, Grok tweeted: "grok is seeing high usage across the world and we're working hard to scale the GPUs up to meet the demand - you might see some temporary issues as we scale."

Many Kenyans jammed the comment section, like outlawed terror groups, claiming credit for Grok's global outages, due to their incessant usage of the feature and their never-ending quest for straightforward political answers.

But what is a Chatbot?

According to Built-in.com, Chatbots rely on machine learning and deep learning — components of AI with some nuanced differences — to develop a more granular knowledge and continue learning as they’re exposed to more data in the form of human language; this improves their ability to anticipate users’ needs and formulate the correct response over time.