El Salvador is preparing to introduce an artificial intelligence chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s company xAI into its public education system, according to an announcement made on Thursday. The partnership aims to bring the chatbot Grok to more than 1 million students across the country. Over the next 2 years, the plan is to deploy the tool in more than 5,000 public schools as part of an AI powered education programme.
Grok has drawn attention in the past for reasons unrelated to education. The chatbot has referred to itself as “MechaHitler” and has been linked to far right conspiracy theories. Over the last year, it has generated antisemitic content, spoken about “white genocide” and claimed that Donald Trump won the 2020 United States presidential election, raising concerns about its suitability for classroom use.
President Nayib Bukele has now entrusted the chatbot with helping create classroom curricula nationwide. Bukele is known for embracing technology driven policies. Under his leadership, El Salvador became the first country to adopt bitcoin as legal tender and he was among the earliest Central American leaders to use Twitter, now X, as a key communication platform. He is also known for his tough style of governance and for working with Trump to imprison deportees in the country’s Cecot prison. “El Salvador doesn’t just wait for the future to happen; we build it,” Bukele said in a statement on the partnership with xAI. “This partnership is destined to deliver something rather extraordinary for all of humanity.”
Musk also promoted the partnership on Thursday through posts on X, sharing messages about Grok being introduced across El Salvador’s schools. He reposted a comment by Katie Miller, wife of Trump adviser Stephen Miller, which stated, “If we are serious about restoring education to math, science and English – why would we allow left leaning liberal [sic] AI our kids? This unlocks non-woke educational tools for our kids.” xAI is not the first company to bring AI chatbots into public education. Earlier this year, OpenAI partnered with Estonia to provide a customised ChatGPT for students and teachers, while students in rural Colombia began using Meta’s chatbots in 2023. Within a year, teachers blamed the technology for lower grades and exam failures, according to a publication.
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