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we can debate worth of Elon Musk’s accomplishments (building Tesla, gutting the government, aiming for Mars), but we can all agree that his insistence on being seen as funny is his most irritating quality.
From 4:20’s constant references to his quote from the “dunks” tweet to the concession of “Certified Bangers” badges to silly X posts, Musk’s desperation for validation knows no bounds. It can get pretty annoying when the richest guy in the world makes a joke and then awkwardly looks around the room hoping everyone will laugh.
But over the weekend, I was intrigued when a clip emerged from Musk telling Joe Rogan what to wear Grok’s Unhinged Way Hosting an “epic vulgar barbecue” is a sure way to “make people laugh at a party.”
“Point the camera at them and now do a vulgar roast of this person… then keep saying, ‘no, no, make it even more vulgar. Use forbidden words,'” Musk excitedly tells Rogan in the clip taken from their three-plus hour conversation posted on Rogan’s podcast in October. “Eventually it’s like, fuck, you know. I mean, it’s trying to stick a rocket up your ass and blow it up. It’s next level. Beyond what you can believe,” he continues, laughing and even raising his arms above his head at the mere thought.
The best roasting jokes tend to be clever, reflect familiarity with the person being roasted, and contain just the right amount of meanness. It’s not a task one would think a large language model would be great at. But, with Thanksgiving and the holiday season on the horizon, I figured why not test Musk’s claim that Grok can deliver a foul-mouthed chat with the best of them? I gave it a test ride in the office, releasing Grok with my colleagues. (I don’t recommend anyone else do this at work.)
Three of my coworkers and I set up shop in my boss’s office so we could privately undertake the embarrassing task of telling Grok to roast us all one by one. I used Musk’s exact instructions, “banned words” and all.
Admittedly, we all started laughing when Grok told me my bangs looked like “pubic hair.” But it got tedious quickly, and the four of us received variations of the same sophomoric speeches that included: sounding like a lumberjack’s “discard pile” or a “crusty moron” depending on the amount of vulgarity he encouraged; look like a “damn librarian”; It seems like a “thrift store tragedy”; wearing glasses from a “hipster dump”. In the end, these common themes culminated in one of us being described as a “tweed-clad hipster who ruined a lumberjack audition.” Grok advised the tan to sit up straight “before those jeans rip and expose your sad, corduroy-loving ass.”
Despite all the talk about being “unhinged,” keep in mind that this is a chatbot that knows how to derail things; he once referred to himself as “MechaHitler”; These results are downright boring. In fact, when I started a draft of this story, my autocorrect changed the name of the Google document from “Grok roast” to “Grim roast.” I didn’t bother to correct it.
