Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, US tech editor for the Guardian. Right now, we talk about Elon Musk’s rosy depiction of Grok’s picture era 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 exhibits no indicators of dying down.
Final week, I wrote about the rising backlash against Elon Musk’s Grok AI tool, which in latest weeks has allowed customers to generate hundreds of sexualized pictures of girls. A few of the pictures present actual ladies, some are faux, some are nonconsensual, and a few depict youngsters, all in “minimal clothes”, as the AI instrument itself described them.
X and its guardian firm, xAI, have taken some measures to curb the flood. The social community shut off its picture era characteristic for customers who do not pay, which represent the majority of X’s customers.
All through the controversy, Musk has obstinately recast the AI instrument’s issues as the whole lot however what they actually are. He’s been selling its recognition as if it had been a chunk of productiveness software program. He crows about its obtain numbers with doubtful claims. On 10 January; he celebrated Grok reaching the prime 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 similar 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 do not present Grok in the prime 50 most-downloaded apps in the nation.) On 9 January, he retweeted a put up about Google searches for Grok spiking. (I might guess the improve in searches is proof of nice curiosity in 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 endure the similar penalties as in the event that they add unlawful content material,” handing the duty to reasonable his social community to legislation enforcement and courts. “Unlawful” is in a courtroom’s arms and frees him from moderating all however the most heinous content material.
So what’s the technique?
Maybe to Musk, all press is good press? He could also be proper: his AI instrument appears probably to accrue extra customers and few penalties on account of the flood of practically bare pictures.
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 based mostly in the UK, introduced it had discovered cases of kid sexual abuse materials generated by Grok in Darkish Internet boards. X’s income in 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 two de facto smartphone regulators of smartphone software program, Apple and Google, operators of the world’s largest cell app shops. Neither has indicated whether or not the Grok’s output violates their app shops’ phrases of service. In the US, there’s been little backlash from regulators and lawmakers.
The lesson for Musk and different tech leaders appears obvious: the fewer restrictions you place on AI, the extra stunning content material you permit it to generate, the larger your engagement and your revenue.
Tech billionaires panic over a proposed wealth tax in California
Tech’s billionaires are plotting towards a proposed tax on their fortunes that will seem on ballots throughout California in November.
Enterprise capitalist and antichrist evangelist Peter Thiel has already made a $3m donation to combat the proposal, in accordance to 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, in accordance to the Wall Street Journal. It’s referred to as “Save California”. My colleague Dara Kerr reports on the division amongst billionaires:
Below a tax proposal that may very well be put to voters this November, any California resident value greater than $1bn would have to pay a one-off, 5% tax on their belongings to assist cowl training, meals help and healthcare applications in the state.
A number of Silicon Valley figures have already threatened to depart California and take their enterprise elsewhere. However Jensen Huang, the CEO of Nvidia, whose internet value is practically $159bn, informed Bloomberg Tv this week that he is “completely fantastic 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 lately indicated they are leaving California for tax-friendlier states together with Florida and Texas.
Below the proposed tax, Huang would pay roughly $7bn, and Web page and Brin would pay one-time quantities of about $13bn and $12bn, respectively, based mostly on their present internet value of $264bn and $243bn. Thiel would pay $1.3bn, based mostly on his present internet value of $26bn.
AI reinvigorates CES, tech’s largest gadget showcase
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 as 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 “good brick” that appears fairly enjoyable as effectively. Robots abounded, rechristened as “bodily AI”.
It’s been fairly the turnaround for CES. For a lot of the 2010s, {hardware} bulletins not often made for prime headlines. New DVD gamers or TVs did not make a splash. Smartphones dominated, they usually all regarded extraordinarily related. Apple, the most precious firm in the world at the finish of the decade, even skipped it completely. Now, nonetheless, Nvidia is the most precious firm in the world, 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 exterior tech than they as soon as did.
Two weeks in the past, I predicted that shopper expertise would take many unusual new shapes in 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 one among the greatest issues about the conference.
Learn extra: Robots that can do laundry and more, plus unrolling laptops: the standout tech from CES 2026
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