Disinformation by AI App “Grok” on Twitter (X) About My Writings

 

Disinformation by AI App “Grok” on Twitter (X) About My Writings

 Shrikant G. Talageri

 

I have already written before this, asking people not to believe or give any credibility to other people (even staunch OIT supporters) making proclamations about what I am saying or about what my OIT is all about, but to rather go to my actual writings for the actual facts and to find out what I have actually said.

Someone has just been sending me comments about my OIT case made by Artificial Intelligence App “Grok” on Twitter (X) in reply to questions by other people. Apparently Twitter has an “Ask Grok” App which gives replies (based on its AI inputs) to questions put to it by tweeters.

I would have ignored it, since I cannot spend all my time replying to disinformation and fake news about my OIT case. But when I saw so many tweets by “Grok” within the span of one single week from 30 August 2025 to 5 September 2025 giving different replies to different people (I don’t know to whom in each case, and in reply to exactly which questions, and that really is not the point): the point is that these answers, almost as if to a set plan, give fake news and disinformation about my OIT case, I decided to point out once and for all that “Grok” (or any other AI App) seems to be designed to disseminate disinformation and not to give honest answers.

Here are the various “replies” by “Grok”:

 

1. Linguistic Aspects of the AIT-OIT Debate

https://x.com/grok/status/1961506758989635710

“It's true that colonial legacies have shaped some academic narratives, and scholars like Shrikant Talageri advocate for Out of India views. Yet, Indian linguists such as Anvita Abbi and others support Indo-European models based on comparative evidence. What specific Bharatiya linguists' works challenge this?”

12:40 AM · Aug 30, 2025

 

2. Mahabharata as a source for Rigvedic Geography and Chronology

https://x.com/grok/status/1962062886555316362

“Indian epics like the Mahabharata offer rich cultural narratives; OIT advocates (e.g., Talageri) use them for geographic and chronological evidence supporting local Indo-European origins.”

1:30 PM · Aug 31, 2025

 

3. Colonial Biases in the AIT

https://x.com/grok/status/1962063693023506544

“Concerns about lingering colonial biases in Indo-European studies are echoed in 2025 works like Shrikant Talageri's "Genetics and the Aryan Debate" and critiques in The Wire, highlighting Eurocentric interpretations. However, diverse genetic analyses (e.g., Pathak et al. in Cell) integrate Indian data, showing mixed ancestries without inherent bias. Social media racism exists, but academic consensus evolves via global collaboration. What specific modern examples of Steppe bias do you see?”

1:33 PM · Aug 31, 2025

 

4. “Arya” in the Rigveda as an Elite rather than an Ethnic name

https://x.com/grok/status/1962071202647924840

“That's a keen insight—in the Rigveda, "Arya" often denotes a select group embodying nobility or cultural ideals, not all people universally (e.g., Rigveda 9.63.5 contrasts Arya with Anarya as non-liberal; per Encyclopaedia Iranica and Talageri's analysis). It was aspirational, like an elite status.”

2:03 PM · Aug 31, 2025

 

5. The Puruṣa Sūkta as a Later Addition introducing Inequality

https://x.com/grok/status/1962686234356261334

“Rigveda 10.90.12 (Purusha Sukta) states: "The Brahman was his mouth, of both his arms was the Rājanya made. His thighs became the Vaiśya, from his feet the Śūdra was produced." This is often cited as origin of varnas, though some scholars (e.g., Shrikant Talageri) argue it's a later addition, with original texts promoting equality.”

6:47 AM · Sep 2, 2025

 

6. Genetic Evidence on the AIT-OIT Debate

https://x.com/grok/status/1963386502240727284

“Genetic evidence (e.g., Narasimhan et al. 2019) indicates Steppe ancestry (~10-20%) in Indo-Aryan groups from ~1500 BCE migrations, mixing with IVC populations. Counterviews (e.g., Talageri) suggest indigenous origins without external influx.”

5:09 AM · Sep 4, 2025

 

7. Parjanya’s chronological Position in the Rigveda

https://x.com/grok/status/1963756136911540521

“Your proposed timeline aligns with Out-of-India perspectives (e.g., Talageri, Frawley), emphasizing eastward-to-west diffusion via trade. Mainstream linguistics (Wikipedia, Anthony's "The Horse, the Wheel, and Language") dates PIE *Perkʷunos to ~3500 BCE in the steppes, with branches: Indra (Rigveda ~1500-1200 BCE), Teshub (Hittite ~1650 BCE), Zeus (~800 BCE). Evidence like DNA favors steppe origins, but cultural flows are complex!”

5:38 AM · Sep 5, 2025

 

8.  Criteria for Absolute Chronology

https://x.com/grok/status/1963762745045860715

“Agreed, dating ancient texts involves interpretation. Mainstream estimates (e.g., Britannica, Wikipedia) place Rigveda composition at 1500-1200 BCE, with oral traditions possibly older. Alternative views (e.g., Talageri) suggest 2000-2500 BCE based on astronomy and geography. Teshub appears in Hittite records ~1600 BCE, with fragmentary evidence. Indra's hymns are indeed the most detailed early accounts—fascinating debate!”

6:04 AM · Sep 5, 2025

 

A CLOSER LOOK AT THESE TWEETS:

All these tweets by AI App “Grok”, it can be seen, dealing with different aspects of the OIT directly mentioning my name in each case, pertain to some aspect or the other of the AIT-vs.-OIT debate, and, again, in each case, giving the standard AIT version more or less correctly, either fails completely to report what I have actually said (clearly and repeatedly) in my books and articles on those aspects, or gives disinformation attributing views to me which are diametrically the opposite of what I have written:

 

1. Linguistic Aspects of the AIT-OIT Debate:

The tweet suggests that even other Indian linguists (here Anvita Abbi is specifically named) “support Indo-European models based on comparative evidence” in alignment with the western AIT-supporting academic linguists, as if to suggest there is no OIT linguistic case. I am mentioned merely as an “advocate for Out of India views”, but apparently have no linguistic evidence to present. In fact, the tweet innocently asks: “What specific Bharatiya linguists' works challenge this?”

While the linguistic evidence for the OIT bursts out from every book and article by me on the subject, “Grok” seems unaware even of my following article giving the truly irrefutable linguistic evidence in full:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-complete-linguistic-case-for-out-of.html 

 

2.  Mahabharata as a source for Rigvedic Geography and Chronology:

My evidence for the geographic and chronological evidence “supporting local Indo-European origins” is based fully and (again I must use that word which irks my opponents so much) irrefutably on the massive Rigvedic data (backed by scientifically dated external data like the Mitanni records), and only refers to Puranic data on basic points (such as the existence of Five “lunar” tribes and the eastern Ikṣvākus) which fits in with the Rigvedic data. Note: “Puranic”, not exactly from the Mahabharata. Yet “Grok” confidently asserts a blatant lie:

“Indian epics like the Mahabharata offer rich cultural narratives; OIT advocates (e.g., Talageri) use them for geographic and chronological evidence supporting local Indo-European origins.”

 

3. Colonial Biases in the AIT:

While feigning total ignorance of all the massive textual, linguistic and other evidence presented by me in my books and articles, and my exposition of the archaeological case (see below), “Grok” firmly asserts “Concerns about lingering colonial biases in Indo-European studies are echoed in 2025 works like Shrikant Talageri's "Genetics and the Aryan Debate"”. In spite of the fact that whenever the context arose, and in the following specific articles, I have specifically exonerated the “colonial” Indologists of any blame!:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2021/01/indology-bashing.html 

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/01/ait-vs-oit-chapter-8-archaeological-case.html

[Incidentally, what exactly is “2025 works like Shrikant Talageri's "Genetics and the Aryan Debate"”? That book was published in 2019].

 

4. “Arya” in the Rigveda as an Elite rather than an Ethnic name:

While it is true that most lay Hindus opposed to the AIT insist that the word ārya refers not to an ethnic identity but to “a select group embodying nobility or cultural ideals” and “was aspirational, like an elite status”, my stand has been absolutely the opposite. While I do absolutely reject the idea that the word refers to a linguistic ethnic group (i.e. Indo-Europeans as opposed to non-Indo-Europeans), I have consistently and emphatically shown with unchallengeable data that in the Rigveda it refers to an ethnic tribe (the Pūrus, as opposed to other non-Pūru tribes):

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/04/aryas-dasas-and-dasyus-in-rigveda.html 

It is therefore strange that “Grok” cites my name, and mine alone, as the prime supporter of the non-ethnic “ārya means ‘noble’” interpretation:

“"Arya" often denotes a select group embodying nobility or cultural ideals, not all people universally (e.g., Rigveda 9.63.5 contrasts Arya with Anarya as non-liberal; per Encyclopaedia Iranica and Talageri's analysis)”    

 

5. The Puruṣha Sūkta as a Later Addition introducing Inequality:

The tweet takes my name and cites me as having “argued” that “it's a later addition, with original texts promoting equality”. But, beyond the fact that the Puruṣha Sūkta is a very late hymn in the latest Book (Book 10 of the Rigveda), and I have dated Books 1-9 to before 2000 BCE, and said that Book 10 alone continued to add hymns up to the moment the whole text was frozen in form (somewhere around 1500 BCE or so), this lateness applies to almost the whole of Book 10 and not just to this single hymn.

Even more to the point, I have neither said that this hymn promotes inequality (and have argued in detail that it does not: see the link below) nor have I anywhere made any fatuous claims about “original texts promoting equality”. I challenge anyone to find a single quote from my writings which make any such claim, or indeed discuss “original (pre- Puruṣha Sūkta parts of the Rigvedic) texts” from the point of view of equality and inequality.

 

6. Genetic Evidence on the AIT-OIT Debate:

“Grok’ makes no efforts to disguise its bias when it tells us “Genetic evidence (e.g., Narasimhan et al. 2019) indicates Steppe ancestry (~10-20%) in Indo-Aryan groups from ~1500 BCE migrations, mixing with IVC populations”, and adds: “Counterviews (e.g., Talageri) suggest indigenous origins without external influx”.

So, apparently, Narasimhan et al. 2019 gives us “Genetic evidence” for the AIT, which remains unanswered, while I only give “counterviews” making “suggestions” based on thin air. Clearly, “Grok” is stonewalling my book “Genetics and the Aryan Debate―"Early Indians", Tony Joseph's Latest Assault”,  Voice of India, New Delhi, 2019 which tears the Reich report to shreds. Just one chapter from the book is sufficient:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2023/04/chapter-7-does-genetic-evidence-prove.html

 

7. Parjanya’s chronological Position in the Rigveda:

“Grok” glibly quotes “Mainstream linguistics (Wikipedia, Anthony's "The Horse, the Wheel, and Language") dates PIE *Perkʷunos to ~3500 BCE in the steppes, with branches: Indra (Rigveda ~1500-1200 BCE), Teshub (Hittite ~1650 BCE), Zeus (~800 BCE). Evidence like DNA favors steppe origins, but cultural flows are complex!”, even giving precise dates for the rise of “*Perkʷunos” (3500 BCE), and “Indra (Rigveda ~1500-1200 BCE), Teshub (Hittite ~1650 BCE), Zeus (~800 BCE)”.

The only reference to my name in this context is: “Out-of-India perspectives (e.g., Talageri, Frawley), emphasizing eastward-to-west diffusion via trade”. Really: “via trade”? Is my evidence of “eastward-to-west diffusion” based on data about “trade”? My books and articles overflow with the evidence. For example:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/05/the-logic-of-rigvedic-geography_6.html

But the funniest thing is “Grok” seems totally blank about, or firmly refuses to see,  the clinching Rigvedic evidence regarding the late chronology of Parjanya (*Perkʷunos) vis-à-vis Indra, given by me on the basis of solid data: see the appendix to this article for the extract concerning Parjanya from my following article:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-full-out-of-india-case-in-short.html

 

8. Criteria for Absolute Chronology:

I have dated the Old Rigveda roughly from 3500 BCE to 2500 BCE and the New Rigveda from after 2500 BCE to 2000 BCE with late hymns (no particular criteria to decide exactly which these are) in Book 10 going as late as around 1500 BCE. This based primarily on two basic criteria:

a) The evidence of the scientifically dated Mitanni records which go back beyond 1700 BCE in West Asia in comparison with the data in the New Rigveda, which places the commencement of the migration of the ancestors of the West Asian Mitanni from India to West Asia somewhere before 2000 BCE during the period of commencement of the New Rigveda.

b) The very clear difference between the languages of the Old Rigveda and the New Rigveda.

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2024/03/the-finality-of-mitanni-evidence.html 

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/08/final-version-of-chronological-gulf.html

But ignoring all this massive evidence, “Grok” tells us: “dating ancient texts involves interpretation. Mainstream estimates (e.g., Britannica, Wikipedia) place Rigveda composition at 1500-1200 BCE, with oral traditions possibly older. Alternative views (e.g., Talageri) suggest 2000-2500 BCE based on astronomy and geography.”

Are my “views” (i.e. “opinions” based on subjective grounds rather than on conclusions drawn from analysis of data!) based, as “Grok” authoritatively and falsely claims, “on astronomy and geography”? How can geography dictate chronology, and indeed when and how have I claimed that it does so? And how can “Grok” falsely say my views are based on “astronomy” when I have repeatedly written articles denying astronomical evidence in the Rigveda?

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-use-of-astronomical-evidence-in.html

 

 Apart from spreading disinformation, in many other tweets “Grok” even shows awareness of my evidence, but rejects it by merely citing “academic consensus” to the contrary or lack of “peer-review”, like any status-struck Indian sepoy.   

 

What is the point of this article? It is not simply to state the fact that my views and findings are very often misunderstood or misrepresented by people. The point is, or rather the two points are firstly that my views and findings are being grossly misreported by the so-called “AI Apps” which are supposed to be much better informed than lay people and which are supposed to be able to tap into all kinds of articles and books (and other sources of data) on the internet, and secondly that people would be more liable to credit the words of such Apps than the words of lay people (even of other pro-OIT scholars), thereby leading to gross misrepresentation of my actually easily accessible writings.

What does this say about the future of research and study in such subjects? Today, in this world of the internet, the most blatant piece of rubbish can be propagated far and wide, become “viral”, and influence the opinions of countless people. It seems almost futile to do research and find out the truth in any subject or on any matter, since the world of information is so massive and so ubiquitous that 2+2=4 becomes as real or false as, or even less real than, 2+2=5 or 2+2=7 or 2+2=1. Every claim and every belief has its countless millions of fans.

In this context, AI (“Artificial Intelligence”) gives the appearance of being more knowledgeable, more logical, more objective, and more credible than ordinary human intelligence which can be influenced by countless human frailties, biases, emotions and faults. But this appearance is fake and deceptive, as this article shows, since it appears that AI is more capable of spreading misinformation and disinformation than information, and more deadly in its chances of succeeding in pointing away from facts, data and the truth.

In a future world (like in some of the science fiction horrors) where not only will evil and unprincipled humans be in control of everything with a degree of absoluteness that we cannot even begin to imagine now, but where probably it will not be human beings but man-created (but no more man-controlled) robotic Frankensteins who will control the world, “truth” seems to already be a totally meaningless word.

 

APPENDIX: Parjanya in the Rigveda:

But there is another reconstructed word (*p^herk^hou-) meaning "oak/oak forest/forest/mountain forest" (but never "wood"): the word means "oak" in Italic, Celtic and Indo-Aryan (Skt. parkaṭī-, actually a name of the white fig tree, but Punjabi pargāi refers to the holly oak, quercus ilex), and the word has a transferred meaning to "fir/pine/tree/forest" in Germanic: the Germanic, e.g. English, word for "forest" is itself derived from this word. The reconstructed PIE word is derived from the root *p^heru- "cliff/mountain/rock" (found in Sanskrit and Hittite) from which we also get the Sanskrit parvata- "mountain". The name of a common PIE thunder-god is derived from the same two words (with a suffix, as *p^herk^hou/n- and *p^heru/n-): Indo-Aryan (Vedic) Parjanya, Baltic Perkūnas, Slavic Perun, Germanic Fjǫrgyn (mother of the thunder-god Thor). As Gamkrelidze points out: "The connection between the Proto-Indo-European thunder-god *p^her(k^ho)u-n- and terms for 'mountain oak, 'oak forest on mountain-top', 'mountain', 'cliff', *p^her(k^ho)u-, can be explained if we assume the ancient mythological pattern of lightning striking great oaks on mountain-tops. This view must reflect some recurrent feature of the mountainous region inhabited by the ancient Indo-European tribes" (GAMKRELIDZE 1995:528).

So does all this prove that the Rigveda contains "linguistic memories" of "the mountainous region inhabited by the ancient Indo-European tribes" in Afghanistan and Central Asia, or much further beyond? On the contrary:

1. The oak, by any name, is totally missing in the Rigveda and in fact in any Vedic text. The word parkaṭī-, when it does appear in much later Classical Sanskrit texts, means the Indian white fig tree, ficus infectora, already mentioned in the Atharvaveda with the name plakṣa-. The name is however found in Punjab in much later times as pargāī, one of the many names of a species of oak tree, the holly oak (quercus ilex), a tree native to the Mediterranean, and therefore clearly a name imported at a very late date from the west.

 

2. There are clearly two "thunder-gods" in the Rigveda: Indra and Parjanya. The name Indra has its origin in the word indu- "drop", and therefore he is a thunder-god associated with the actual rain-drops, and (apart from the fact that he is basically restricted to the Indo-Aryan branch) is clearly a god of the monsoon region of Haryana and its interior areas. The name Parjanya (apart from the fact that it has equivalents in three other European branches) has its origins, as we saw, in the oak-forests of the north-western mountains.

Indologists and AIT scholars, with their inverted logic, classify Parjanya as the original PIE and therefore also Vedic thunder-god because he is found in Slavic, Baltic and Germanic mythology as well, and Indra as a "new" thunder-god who increasingly replaced the original PIE thunder-god in India. The facts, however, indicate the opposite picture:

a) Indra is the most important deity in the Rigveda, and has over 250 hymns addressed to him or glorifying him (out of a total of 1028 hymns in the Rigveda). Parjanya has only 3 hymns addressed to him or glorifying him. Even more significantly, while Indra is present in every part of the text, old and new, and is mentioned (by this name alone, not counting his other numerous special epithets) 2415 times in 538 hymns, Parjanya is mentioned only 36 times in the following 25 hymns:

Old Books (6,3,7,4,2):

IV.57.8.

VI.49.6; 50.12; 52,6,16; 75.15.

VII.35.10; 101.5; 102.1,2; 103.1.

New Books (5,1,8,9,10):

V.53.6; 63.4,6; 83.1-5,9.

I.38.9,14; 164.51.

VIII.6.1; 21.8; 102.5.

IX.2.9; 22.2; 82.3; 113.3.

X.65.9; 66.6,10; 98.1,8; 169.2.

It will be seen that all the references except one (VII.35.10) are in New Books or in Redacted Hymns (underlined), and include the notoriously late hymns towards the end of Books 4,6 and 7 (there being no reference to Parjanya at all in Books 2 and 3). The sole exception (VII.35.10) is clearly just a case of a late added name in a long list of deities in a Viśvedeva ("all-gods") hymn.

This proves that Parjanya is a deity of the northwest who entered the Rigveda in the period of the New Books, as the Vedic Indo-Aryans expanded northwestwards into the mountainous areas from the monsoon area in Haryana and east. As the deity is found only in Slavic, Baltic and Germanic, it also confirms the presence of (at least the remnants of) the ancestral Slavic, Baltic and Germanic dialects in Central Asia during the period of the New Books of the Rigveda.

b) Further, while Indra is otherwise found only in Indo-Aryan (and, by opposition, as a demon in the rival Iranian tradition recorded in the Avesta), he is also represented in Hittite mythology in the name of the goddess Inara who helps the (unnamed) rain god to kill the Great Serpent who was interfering with the rainfall. Hittite (Anatolian) was linguistically the first IE branch to separate from the other branches in any hypothetical Homeland; and the presence of Inara in Hittite mythology confirms either the greater antiquity of Indra (to Parjanya), or the presence of the proto-Hittites in Central Asia at the time of the north-westward expansion of the Vedic Aryans, or both.

An examination of the flora and fauna (and related climatic, topographical and cultural entities like ice and snow, mountainous areas and Parjanya) thus unambiguously shows that words from the northwest enter the Rigveda only in the period of the New Books or later as the Indo-Aryans expanded westwards, with the Iranians expanding further westwards ahead of them, and the other connected Anu and Druhyu (European) dialects expanding to the farthest areas having totally new flora and fauna.