We can discuss value Elon Musk achievements – building up Teslahollowing out governmentshooting at Mars– but we can all agree that his insistence on being funny is his most annoying quality.
From a constant 4:20 links to his quote on Twitter “dunk” at the awards”Certified fireworks» badges on stupid X-posts, Musk’s desperation for verification knows no bounds. It can be very annoying when the richest guy on earth makes a joke and then awkwardly looks around the room, expecting everyone to laugh.
But over the weekend I was intrigued when clip information appeared that Musk told Joe Rogan that the use Grock's Crazy Mode serving up an “epic kitschy roast” is a surefire way to “make people really laugh at a party.”
“Point the camera at them, now do a vulgar roast of that person… and then keep saying, 'No, no, make it even more vulgar.' Use forbidden words,” Musk excitedly tells Rogan in a clip taken from their three-hour conversation posted on Rogan's podcast in October. “At the end of the day, it's like, damn, you know. I mean he's trying to stick a rocket up your ass and make it explode. This is the next level. Beyond the point of faith,” he continues, chuckling and even raising his hands above his head at this very thought.
The best roast jokes tend to be smart, reflect familiarity with the person being roasted, and contain just the right amount of viciousness. This is not a task that a large language model would seem capable of handling. But with Thanksgiving and the holiday season on the horizon, I thought why not test Musk's claim that Grock can throw a foul-mouthed mess with the best of them? I tried it out in the office by pitting Grock on my co-workers. (I don't recommend anyone do this at work.)
Three of my colleagues and I set up shop in my boss's office so I could privately take on the awkward task of telling Grok to fry us all one by one. I used Musk's exact instructions, “forbidden words” and all.
I'll admit, we all laughed when Grok told me my bangs looked like “pubic hair.” But it quickly became tiresome, and all four of them ended up with variations of the same student disses, including: looking like a lumberjack's “piece of trash” or a “hard asshole” depending on the amount of vulgarity I encouraged; looks like a “damn librarian”; looks like a “thrift store tragedy”; wearing glasses from a “hipster junkyard.” Eventually, these common themes led to one of us being described as “a hipster in tweed who failed his lumberjack audition.” Grok advised the roast to sit up straight “before your jeans rip and expose your sad, corduroy-loving ass.”
For all the talk about being “upset” – keep in mind that this is a chatbot that knows how to get things out of control; this is one time called himself “MechaHitler”— these results are frankly boring. In fact, when I started a draft of this story, my autocorrect changed the title of the Google Doc from “Grock Roast” to “Grim Roast.” I didn't bother to correct it.
