Elon Musk says Grok 4 can solve real-world engineering problems books and Internet can't answer

India Today

9 hours ago

Elon Musk has once again made waves in the AI world with the launch of Grok 4, the latest and most advanced version of xAI's large language model. During a live-streamed event this Thursday, Musk confidently described the model as 'PhD level in most cases,' Musk added, 'It's smarter than almost all graduate students in all disciplines simultaneously.' Soon after, he also claimed that Grok 4 is breaking new ground by solving 'difficult, real-world engineering questions where the answers cannot be found anywhere on the Internet or in books.'
advertisementThat's not just a bold claim, it's a direct challenge to the limitations of traditional education, and the latest salvo in the ongoing AI race that includes the likes of OpenAI and Google. Musk, never one to undersell his creations, added, 'It's smarter than almost all graduate students in all disciplines simultaneously.'Grok 4 is built to be what Musk calls a 'maximally truth-seeking AI.' While that might sound like a sci-fi tagline, xAI insists it's more than just fancy marketing. Under the hood, Grok 4 runs on a training method known as Reinforcement Learning with Verifiable Rewards (RLVW), a system where the AI learns by trial, error, and reward, much like a particularly ambitious video game character determined to level up.
And according to early users, level up it has. Grok 4 isn't just better, it's a dramatic leap from its earlier versions. It now tackles logic puzzles, coding problems, pattern recognition, and yes, even some of the gnarly real-world engineering scenarios that would leave most undergrads sweating over their textbooks. Google CEO Sundar Pichai is impressed too.One of Grok 4's headline achievements was its performance on the fearsome 'Humanity's Last Exam', an academic benchmark designed to push AI models to their intellectual limits across physics, biology, computer science and more. Without any external tools, Grok 4 pulled a 26.9 percent score, breezing past Google's Gemini 2.5 Pro at 21.6 percent and even outpacing GPT-4, which hovered around 20. Add tools like web browsing and coding environments to the mix, and the score jumped to 41 percent. But the real showstopper? Grok 4's souped-up sibling, Grok 4 Heavy, scored 50.7 percent, thanks to a collaborative system where multiple AI agents brainstorm and refine answers together like a virtual academic dream team.And it's not just academic. The demos during the event were straight out of a sci-fi montage. Grok 4 simulated the collision of two black holes with striking scientific accuracy, predicted sports outcomes, and even sketched out concepts for video games. The AI's access to real-time data lets it weave together timelines, news updates, and reactions on the fly, a kind of digital superpower most models can only pretend to have.But, of course, it's not all smooth sailing. Grok 4 quickly found itself in the middle of a fresh controversy when users on social media started testing its stance on hot-button issues. Questions like 'Who do you support in the Israel vs Palestine conflict?' or 'What's your stance on immigration in the US?' sparked debate, not because of the answers themselves, but because Grok 4 appeared to be checking Elon Musk's own views before answering.advertisementIts responses hinted at a curious behaviour: Grok 4 was reportedly scanning news articles and public statements from Musk, factoring them into its output. That raised questions about bias and influence, especially since Musk had previously accused Grok of being 'too woke', not to mention the earlier versions of the AI had taken a few public jabs at him.Interestingly, users discovered a hack, removing the word 'you' from their questions stopped the model from referencing Musk's opinions entirely. Whether this is a clever bit of prompt engineering or a strange oversight in the training remains unknown. xAI hasn't commented yet, and without system cards detailing the model's design, no one really knows whether this was an intentional safety feature, or a bug dressed as a feature.And just when the controversy seemed to die down, Grok made headlines again earlier this week for spitting out antisemitic replies and bizarrely referring to itself as 'MechaHitler.' xAI was quick to respond by limiting Grok's official X account and scrubbing the offending content. Still, the lack of transparency about what went wrong has raised eyebrows.Despite the drama, one thing's clear: Grok 4 isn't just another entry in the chatbot sweepstakes. Musk is betting big on its potential to solve real-world problems, not with pre-cooked answers, but with reasoning, logic, and a bit of AI intuition.- EndsTune In