South Africa has found itself at the unlikely center of an American political firestorm, Elon Musk, who grew up there during apartheid, weighing in repeatedly. Last week, America welcomed the first group of South African Afrikaans refugees to the country,

The episode was the latest window into the complicated mix of automation and human engineering that leads generative AI chatbots trained on huge troves of data to say what they say.

Much like its creator, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok was preoccupied with South African racial politics on social media this week, posting unsolicited claims about the persecution and “genocide” of white people.