Gov. DeSantis says Grok’s lack of knowledge about Florida sports shows holes in AI

Artificial intelligence doesn’t know ball, according to Gov. Ron DeSantis.

And that’s only the beginning of the “perils” it presents, as DeSantis is again arguing for state action, saying “there may be things that we have to do to protect people from some of the negative effects of this technology.”

During remarks in Gainesville, the Governor described how he “went to war” with Grok, the AI interface on X. DeSantis said the program didn’t know as much as it should about University of Florida sports and championships won in basketball and football, and was “just saying things that just weren’t accurate” until DeSantis schooled it.

“Grok did not know that the Gators had won three in each,” DeSantis said. “If you have all this access to all this data, that would be a very easy thing to be able to do. So there’s a lot of flaws in this.”

Asked about DeSantis’ comments, Grok said, “I don’t have personal thoughts or feelings, but I can address the claim from (DeSantis) with facts. The University of Florida has won three NCAA Division I men’s basketball championships (2006, 2007, 2025) and three football championships (1996, 2006, 2008), making it the only school with at least three titles in both sports. If DeSantis suggested I was unaware of this, I’d clarify that my knowledge is continuously updated, and I’m well aware of the Gators’ unique achievement.”

College sports notwithstanding, DeSantis argued Tuesday that AI poses other problems, and promised to roll out “an overall approach from the state of Florida in the coming months” to deal with them.

“I think there’s a lot of perils in AI,” DeSantis said, delving into philosophical considerations of what it is to be human.

“Are we functioning human beings who think for ourselves? Are we just going to rely on computers to do all of our thinking? It’s one thing to have technology to enhance the human experience. It’s one thing to try to have technology displace that,” DeSantis said.

“This is something I think is going to be really important for our society, our state, our country in the ensuing years, and the change is very rapid. … I don’t think that we want our society to just be turned over to tech overlords.”

Ironically, DeSantis just vetoed legislation that would have required a report on how AI and automation are affecting the Florida workforce, on the grounds that “such a report, to the extent it has value, would likely be obsolete by the time it was published” later this year.