Grok AI summaries misidentified Nagahama policy as Kyoto City policy on X
Grok, X's chat AI, summarized a Kyoto News article about Nagahama City's administrative penalties policy as applying to Kyoto City instead, and spread the misattribution via X's 'Today's News' feature. Kyoto City staff discovered the error and X removed the content after the city requested deletion.
What happened
Grok summarized a Kyoto News article in X's 'Today's News' feature as of 21 October 2025 about Nagahama City Mayor Asomi Nobuyoshi's plan to impose strict penalties for administrative staff errors. The AI attributed the policy to Kyoto City instead of Nagahama City.
The headline stated "City office staff administrative errors to be penalized" without naming the municipality. Kyoto News was the source, which may have led Grok to misattribute the policy to Kyoto City.
Reported impact
Kyoto City staff identified the misinformation on the morning of 21 October 2025. The city issued a notice on its official website and social media stating "this announcement and deliberation are not being conducted by us."
Index analysis
Grok's feature includes a disclaimer that "Grok can make mistakes, so please verify whether the output is factual." However, the AI had previously generated incorrect summaries.
X users noted that the article title lacked the municipality name despite being published by a regionally named news outlet, contributing to the misidentification.
Governance controls
Kyoto City requested deletion from X Corp. Japan on 21 October 2025. X Corp. Japan acknowledged the error and apologized, removing the content by approximately 1 p.m. the same day.
Kyoto City's spokesperson stated they were grateful for the swift response but urged X to "issue correct information in the first place" given how quickly misinformation spreads on social media.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.