Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, US tech editor for the Guardian. Right this moment, we focus on 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 Client Electronics Showcase.
Musk’s reframe
The firestorm over the Grok AI device has been raging for greater than per week now, and it exhibits no indicators of dying down.
Final week, I wrote in regards to the rising backlash in opposition to Elon Musk’s Grok AI device, which in latest weeks has allowed customers to generate 1000’s of sexualized photographs of girls. A few of the photographs present actual ladies, some are faux, some are nonconsensual, and a few depict youngsters, all in “minimal clothes”, because the AI device itself described them.
X and its mum or dad firm, xAI, have taken some measures to curb the flood. The social community shut off its picture technology characteristic for customers who don’t pay, which represent the vast majority of X’s customers.
All through the controversy, Musk has obstinately recast the AI device’s issues as all the pieces however what they are surely. He’s been selling its reputation 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 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 prime 50 most-downloaded apps within the nation.) On 9 January, he retweeted a put up about Google searches for Grok spiking. (I’d guess the rise in searches is proof of nice curiosity within the AI device’s scandal extra so than curiosity in utilizing it.)
In response to the UK’s threats to ban the AI device, he accused the nation’s authorities of stifling free speech. After watchdogs cited situations of Grok undressing minors, he stated: “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 accountability to average his social community to legislation enforcement and courts. “Unlawful” is in a courtroom’s arms and frees him from moderating all however probably 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 device appears prone to accrue extra customers and few penalties because of the flood of practically bare photographs.
Grok has confronted some repercussions: the UK’s communications regulator, Ofcom, has launched an investigation into xAI and Grok, and potential punishments may embrace a complete ban. The Web Watch Basis, additionally based mostly within the UK, introduced it had discovered situations 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 device 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 largest cellular 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 surprising 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 in opposition to 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, based on marketing campaign finance disclosures filed with the state. Different billionaires have began an encrypted group chat on Sign to strategize in opposition to it, which incorporates Anduril founder Palmer Luckey, Trump’s AI and crypto “czar” David Sacks, based on the Wall Avenue Journal. It’s referred to as “Save California”. My colleague Dara Kerr experiences on the division amongst billionaires:
Beneath a tax proposal that may very well be put to voters this November, any California resident value greater than $1bn must pay a one-off, 5% tax on their belongings to assist cowl schooling, 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 internet value is almost $159bn, instructed Bloomberg Tv this week that he’s “completely effective 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 not too long ago 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, 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 Client Electronics Present, held yearly in Las Vegas for many years since its begin in 1967, made world 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 effectively. 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 prime headlines. New DVD gamers or TVs didn’t make a splash. Smartphones dominated, and so they all seemed extraordinarily related. Apple, probably the most worthwhile firm on the earth on the finish of the last decade, even skipped it completely. Now, nevertheless, Nvidia is probably the most worthwhile firm on the earth, 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 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 probably the greatest issues in regards to the conference.
Learn extra: Robots that may do laundry and extra, plus unrolling laptops: the standout tech from CES 2026
