Elon Musk’s cussed spin on Grok’s sexualized photos controversy

[ad_1] H ello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, US tech editor for the Guardian. At the moment, we talk about Elon Musk’s rosy depiction of Grok’s picture technology controversy; the seven-figure panic amongst Silicon Valley billionaires over a proposed wealth tax in California, although with one notable exception; and the way AI and robotics have revitalized the Shopper Electronics Showcase.

Musk’s reframe The firestorm over the Grok AI instrument has been raging for greater than every week now, and it reveals no indicators of dying down.

Final week, I wrote in regards to the rising backlash towards Elon Musk’s Grok AI instrument, which in current weeks has allowed customers to generate 1000's of sexualized photos of girls. Among the photos present actual ladies, some are pretend, some are nonconsensual, and a few depict kids, all in “minimal clothes”, because the AI instrument itself described them.

X and its mother or father firm, xAI, have taken some measures to curb the flood. The social community shut off its picture technology function for customers who don't pay, which represent nearly all of X’s customers.

All through the controversy, Musk has obstinately recast the AI instrument’s issues as the whole lot however what they are surely. He’s been selling its recognition as if it had been a bit of productiveness software program. He crows about its obtain numbers with doubtful claims. On 10 January; he celebrated Grok reaching the highest spot in New Zealand’s model of Apple’s App Retailer. (Rankings by the analytics agency SimilarWeb of the most-downloaded apps in New Zealand, which had been up to date the identical day as Musk’s tweet, put Grok in 14th place.) The identical day, he reposted a tweet about Grok reaching the No 1 spot in Thailand’s Apple App Retailer. (SimilarWeb’s rankings don't present Grok within the high 50 most-downloaded apps within the nation.) On 9 January, he retweeted a submit about Google searches for Grok spiking. (I'd guess the rise in searches is proof of nice curiosity within the AI instrument’s scandal extra so than curiosity in utilizing it.)

In response to the UK’s threats to ban the AI instrument, he accused the nation’s authorities of stifling free speech. After watchdogs cited cases of Grok undressing minors, he mentioned: “Anybody utilizing Grok to make unlawful content material will undergo the identical penalties as in the event that they add unlawful content material,” handing the duty to average his social community to regulation enforcement and courts. “Unlawful” is in a court docket’s arms and frees him from moderating all however essentially the most heinous content material.

So what’s the technique? Maybe to Musk, all press is nice press? He could also be proper: his AI instrument appears more likely to accrue extra customers and few penalties because of the flood of practically bare photos.

Grok has confronted some repercussions: the UK’s communications regulator, Ofcom, has launched an investigation into xAI and Grok, and potential punishments might embody a complete ban. The Web Watch Basis, additionally primarily based within the UK, introduced it had discovered cases of kid sexual abuse materials generated by Grok in Darkish Net boards. X’s income within the UK has plummeted by 60% as considerations over content material moderation and model security develop. Each Indonesia and Malaysia have restricted entry to the AI instrument in response.

However lacking from the refrain decrying Grok are the 2 de facto smartphone regulators of smartphone software program, Apple and Google, operators of the world’s greatest cell app shops. Neither has indicated whether or not the Grok’s output violates their app shops’ phrases of service. Within the US, there’s been little backlash from regulators and lawmakers.

The lesson for Musk and different tech leaders appears obvious: the less restrictions you place on AI, the extra stunning content material you enable it to generate, the higher your engagement and your revenue.

Tech billionaires panic over a proposed wealth tax in California Jensen Huang speaks throughout an Nvidia keynote handle at CES 2026 in Las Vegas, Nevada, on 5 January. {Photograph}: Steve Marcus/Reuters Tech’s billionaires are plotting towards a proposed tax on their fortunes which will seem on ballots throughout California in November.

Enterprise capitalist and antichrist evangelist Peter Thiel has already made a $3m donation to struggle the proposal, based on marketing campaign finance disclosures filed with the state. Different billionaires have began an encrypted group chat on Sign to strategize towards it, which incorporates Anduril founder Palmer Luckey, Trump’s AI and crypto “czar” David Sacks, based on the Wall Road Journal. It’s known as “Save California”. My colleague Dara Kerr experiences on the division amongst billionaires:

Beneath a tax proposal that could possibly be put to voters this November, any California resident price greater than $1bn must pay a one-off, 5% tax on their belongings to assist cowl training, meals help and healthcare packages within the state.

A number of Silicon Valley figures have already threatened to go away California and take their enterprise elsewhere. However Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, whose web price is sort of $159bn, informed Bloomberg Tv this week that he's “completely superb with it”.

This places Huang in stark distinction with the Google co-founders Larry Web page and Sergey Brin, Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel and Donald Trump’s AI and crypto czar, the enterprise capitalist David Sacks, all of whom have just lately indicated they're leaving California for tax-friendlier states together with Florida and Texas.

Beneath the proposed tax, Huang would pay roughly $7bn, and Web page and Brin would pay one-time quantities of about $13bn and $12bn, respectively, primarily based on their present web price of $264bn and $243bn. Thiel would pay $1.3bn, primarily based on his present web price of $26bn.

AI reinvigorates CES, tech’s greatest gadget showcase The Sharpa North robotic makes use of a digicam throughout the CES tech present in Las Vegas, on 7 January. {Photograph}: John Locher/AP The Shopper Electronics Present, held yearly in Las Vegas for many years since its begin in 1967, made international information this 12 months. Nvidia and AMD selected it because the discussion board for main bulletins on new {hardware} and software program. Samsung introduced a double folding cellphone, the Galaxy Z Fold 3, and Lego debuted a “sensible brick” that appears fairly enjoyable as properly. Robots abounded, rechristened as “bodily AI”.

It’s been fairly the turnaround for CES. For a lot of the 2010s, {hardware} bulletins hardly ever made for high headlines. New DVD gamers or TVs didn't make a splash. Smartphones dominated, and so they all seemed extraordinarily comparable. Apple, essentially the most precious firm on this planet on the finish of the last decade, even skipped it solely. Now, nonetheless, Nvidia is essentially the most precious firm on this planet, and it selected CES to current what’s subsequent. Synthetic intelligence and robotics have breathed new life into CES. The themes and improvements that outline the conference are broader and have an effect on extra industries outdoors tech than they as soon as did.

Two weeks in the past, I predicted that client know-how would take many unusual new shapes within the coming 12 months, which appears to already be true as we view new developments in robotics. Humanoid robots debuted at CES, together with one from Hyundai and Boston Dynamics. My colleague Samuel Gibbs dubbed a laundry-folding robotic the most effective issues in regards to the conference.