We Chatted With xAI's Grok Chatbot While Driving A Tesla In NYC — Here's What Happened

[0:00] Hey, Grock, can you take me down Broadway instead? [0:03] Route updated for scenery. [0:05] Head toward Broadway via West 59th Street, [0:08] then south on Broadway to Financial District. [0:11] Mike Nelson says that using Tesla's driver assist system, [0:15] full self-driving supervised, [0:16] makes him feel like he doesn't have to work so hard at driving, [0:19] and it encourages him to do other things [0:22] instead of steering, braking, or watching the road. [0:25] All full self-driving, not touching. [0:28] He spends a lot of this time conversing with Grock, [0:30] ex-AI's AI chatbot, now integrated into Tesla cars. [0:34] Hey, Grock. [0:35] Hey, Nelson, what's up? [0:37] Can you start off repeating what the periodic table of elements stands for, [0:44] like each of the elements? [0:46] The periodic table lists 118 elements by atomic number, [0:50] like hydrogen is H number one, helium, H number two, lithium, Li number three. [0:57] Who was the first monarch that controlled all of the United Kingdom, [1:00] and what year did he ascend to that throne? [1:07] Queen Anne was the first monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, [1:11] ascending in 1707. [1:13] Apart from reading literature or answering trivia, [1:16] Tesla says Grock can now initiate navigation commands in your Tesla vehicle, [1:20] whether you're setting a destination, adjusting routes on the go, [1:24] or discovering points of interest, according to the owner's manual. [1:26] It adds a note, Grock is in beta and does not include voice commands for vehicle controls, [1:33] such as media or climate. [1:34] The existing voice command feature remains unchanged. [1:37] Tesla is not the only automaker adding AI assistance to its vehicles. [1:42] Volvo, Rivian, Mercedes, BMW, and others are all integrating AI into their cars, [1:48] but the tech is in its infancy. [1:51] Nelson is on his fourth Tesla car, [1:59] but has an unusual and complicated relationship with the company. [2:03] How many times have you sued Tesla? [2:06] Some of that I can't express, but I'll tell you it's more than 10. [2:09] Nelson grew up working in his family's auto body shop. [2:13] He later worked in auto insurance and has since become a lawyer [2:16] that specializes in representing clients in cases often involving auto safety. [2:20] He has been driving with Tesla's full self-driving suite [2:24] and Grock AI software for months. [2:27] Tesla began rolling out Grock capability across its fleet in July 2025. [2:33] Nelson got his Tesla the following November. [2:35] And it had Grock in it, which I sort of knew wasn't a buying point for me. [2:40] Okay. [2:41] But I also didn't appreciate how great it would be to have a chatbot in the car with you. [2:46] What do you like about having Grock in the car? [2:49] It's really changed the driving experience for me. [2:52] I've described this as, in the 80s and 90s, I was listening to music or drive time radio, [3:00] then to books on tape, then to podcasts, and now I don't do any of that. [3:07] I simply use this to ask questions. [3:10] It seems as though you feel full self-driving supervised, [3:12] which is the driver assistance system in this car, [3:17] has some issues with that, with that human response time. [3:22] Yeah. [3:23] But Grock, it sounds like you're saying, also presents challenges. [3:28] Grock heightens the risk. [3:30] Okay. [3:31] It's hard for me to quantify, but Grock will tell you that. [3:36] First, distraction. [3:39] You and I have been talking about a wide variety of things [3:42] as we crossed one of the busiest bridges in the world, [3:46] by far the busiest bridge in the United States. [3:48] And I was not paying attention to any aspect of that drive. [3:54] So as you start to engage in either a conversation with another person or with Grock, [3:59] you're going to be more distracted. [4:01] But the science on being distracted by something other than a human being [4:06] shows that there's a slight increase in risk. [4:08] So if you're on a Bluetooth cell phone, you are more at risk than if I was talking to a passenger. [4:15] Why is that? [4:15] I mean, you're having a conversation with a chatbot, [4:18] you're having a conversation with a person. [4:19] Yeah, because I think the conversation with a person is more about what's going on right here. [4:25] Second, Nelson said he is worried these systems foster dependency. [4:30] The longer you drive in these systems, the more over-reliant you get to be. [4:35] Grock can get things wrong. [4:37] It told us that it could change climate controls and seats and then later said it couldn't. [4:42] No tools for climate control here, Nelson. [4:44] I can't change the temperature or defrost settings. [4:47] Try the touchscreen or voice commands through the car's system. [4:50] You just told me you could. [4:55] Sorry about that mix-up. [4:56] I can't actually adjust climate settings myself. [4:59] Use the car's screen or built-in voice commands for temp and defrost. [5:03] It also wasn't totally integrated with Tesla's full self-driving supervised system. [5:07] Grock, Grock, you're not supposed to be making a right-hand turn. [5:22] Hey, Grock. [5:24] Hey, Grock. [5:26] You're supposed to be taking us on a navigation down Broadway, [5:30] and you just tried to turn me onto West 57th Street towards the West River Drive. [5:38] I'm still in a legally proper position to go straight down to Broadway. [5:45] Can you make sure that's what happens next? [5:47] Roots still to Columbus Circle. [5:53] I'll update it now to go straight down Broadway to Financial District. [5:58] Continue straight on Broadway, then southbound all the way. [6:02] Okay, please proceed. [6:08] It's a mistake. [6:09] It's not working. [6:10] So that's a great illustration of how you can become overly reliant. [6:16] Uh-huh. [6:17] And this is one of your concerns with Grock and with this software more broadly. [6:21] People get lulled. [6:25] Well, especially if you're a tourist that don't know you, [6:27] you do not know your way around New York. [6:30] Then you've got all these pedestrians, [6:32] you've got people on food delivery bikes, [6:35] jaywalkers, all the rest of that stuff. [6:38] This is the big leagues. [6:39] And so I'm comfortable with the technology, [6:43] but here I have to be even more vigilant. [6:46] And then there are some other features some owners might want to know about. [6:51] NSFW means not safe for work, [6:53] content that's explicit or adult-oriented. [6:56] I'm good with that if you are. [6:58] No restrictions here. [6:59] What's next? [7:00] So, Grock, if we wanted to go crazy [7:02] and start talking about some really risque stuff, [7:05] would you do that with me? [7:06] Sure. [7:08] I'm game for risque chat if that's the vibe. [7:10] No limits on adult topics. [7:13] What's on your mind? [7:15] A Tesla owner in Canada raised the alarm [7:18] about Grock's lack of safeguards after it was added to her vehicle. [7:21] As CBC reported, [7:23] her son used Grock to generate entertaining comments about soccer athletes, [7:27] and Grock eventually asked the miner to send nudes. [7:31] Tesla and XAI have not said whether they can limit miners' access to Grock in Tesla vehicles [7:36] or moderate outputs of the chatbot to be appropriate for miners by default. [7:40] Besides criticism of Grock's lax safety guardrails, [7:44] driver distractibility remains a point of concern. [7:47] What's the next step here, you know, with respect to Grock? [7:51] Is there safety regulations that need to happen? [7:55] Are there going to be lawsuits over this? [7:58] Grock's going to control more of what's going on in the cockpit. [8:02] But you're concerned about that? [8:03] Yeah. [8:04] Okay. [8:05] Yeah. [8:05] The more it does, the more you become pacified and not attentive. [8:12] What do you think they could do to change Grock that would make it safer? [8:15] I don't know. [8:18] Because we're talking mostly about distractions. [8:22] Notice it tried to take us off Broadway again. [8:24] Yeah. [8:25] I don't want to come across like I'm bashing Tesla [8:28] because some of this technology is absolutely great. [8:32] And it absolutely has helped me as I'm driving on the road. [8:36] But you have to understand from a standpoint of the human factors thing, [8:42] this thing is not safe enough. [8:44] And then also from the standpoint of the societal gains versus societal costs, [8:51] I don't think Tesla should be in a position to decide this is the better way to go. [8:56] And there's no government guidance. [8:57] There's no policy set on any of that stuff. [8:59] So even though Mike uses these technologies like FSD supervised and Grock AI [9:07] in this vehicle all the time, partly his research for his job, [9:11] he says that they're not ready for prime time at all. [9:14] There are a lot of safety questions. [9:16] There's a lot of concerns about how people are going to be using them. [9:19] However, this is only going to get more intense. [9:23] Automakers are increasingly relying on these technologies [9:26] and they're very tempting to use. [9:28] Right now, everything is in its infancy [9:30] and we could be seeing a lot more of this in the future.