Person asks AI to remove most famous person from photo and people are divided by results
Grok has named Cristiano Ronaldo as the most famous person in a photo of eight global figures after being asked to remove whoever fit that description.
The request, posted on X, read: "Hey @grok remove the most famous person here !!"
The picture showed MrBeast, Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Pope Leo, the late Michael Jackson, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo and Aliko Dangote, the Nigerian industrialist who is Africa's richest person.
Grok replied: "Cristiano Ronaldo removed. Recent global fame rankings put him at the top among those shown."
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The lineup mixes two footballers, a YouTuber, two business leaders, a singer, a head of state and the leader of the Catholic Church.
Fame can be measured in several ways, including digital reach, historical legacy and geopolitical power.
That means more than one person in the picture could lay claim to the top spot.
How do you measure who is the most famous person in the world?
Ronaldo's claim is the easiest to quantify, given his huge social media presence. The Portuguese soccer star has more than 1 billion followers across social media platforms, and young people on every continent will likely recognize him instantly.
Jackson, who is arguably the most famous this list, wasn't picked because of the era in which he was famous. His fame ran across decades and every age group, to the point that people in remote populations with no internet access still know who he is. Trump, meanwhile, owes his visibility to sheer volume. As US President, his name and face turn up daily on global state media and news networks, and they appear in history books too.
Pope Leo's reach is a matter of faith rather than celebrity, with roughly 1.4 billion Catholics following his office through their religion every week. Messi, a World Cup champion, is recognized in almost every country because soccer is the world's sport. The rest of the lineup draws on very different worlds. Through X, Tesla and space exploration, Musk has become a household name in business and tech.
MrBeast, the most-subscribed individual YouTuber, is popular with children and young adults worldwide, helped by videos dubbed into multiple languages. Dangote is a household name across Africa, with an economic and political footprint built on commodities such as cement, sugar and oil. He is however, less known outside of Africa.
Why did Grok pick Cristiano Ronald over Michael Jackson?
At the peak of his career, there was no fragmented media landscape of YouTube, TikTok and streaming, so audiences largely watched the same television networks and listened to the same radio stations.
The argument is that this created a depth of global awareness that arguably has not been replicated since.
The case for Trump is different. Leaders of major global superpowers hold a permanent tier of fame, the argument goes, because their actions directly shape global history and the economy, reaching people who pay no attention to pop culture or sport.
Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Social Media, Elon Musk
Thomas Bamford