Musk's AI-Made 'Odyssey' Is Not Historically Accurate, Grok Itself Admits
Elon Musk's promised 'historically accurate' version of Homer's Odyssey, made with xAI's Grok Imagine, has appeared as a seven-minute episode. Asked about its accuracy, the Grok chatbot itself says it is not accurate.
Billionaire Elon Musk, who runs the artificial intelligence company xAI and owns the social network X, has released the first installment of his promised version of The Odyssey. The video was made with xAI's image and video generation model, Grok Imagine. When asked about its accuracy, the company's own chatbot, Grok, says the episode is not historically accurate.
The promise and the result
Musk had criticized director Christopher Nolan's film adaptation of Homer's epic poem after its July release. Four days after the premiere, he wrote on X that before the year ended, Grok Imagine would make a full-length movie that was historically accurate and true to the art of Homer. Nolan's film has grossed nearly $1.8 billion worldwide, even though right-wing critics predicted a flop, objecting to the diverse casting and departures from the source material.
What has now appeared is not a feature film but a seven-minute 'episode' of an apparently ongoing series, produced by the AI entertainment company Wonder Studios X. It shows Odysseus, King of Ithaca, resisting a call to war against Troy but eventually sailing there with his army because of an oath of loyalty. Musk shared the clip on X on Friday; the post received 18,000 likes, less than several of his other recent posts.
Criticism and Grok's own verdict
The episode shows common signs of AI-generated content: facial movements do not match the dialogue, delivery sounds unnatural, and only Odysseus is named. The Ithacans reach Troy right after leaving home. Some X users also reacted harshly.
When asked whether the episode is historically accurate, Grok answered, 'No.' It said The Odyssey is not a historical document, its characters have no basis in the historical record, and the poem is dominated by myth and invention. The chatbot noted that the characters speak modern English with British accents rather than Homeric Greek, and that the visuals draw on modern cinematic tropes and AI training data rather than archaeological evidence. It also cited cavalry in a battle scene as an error.
