France Stance

“French prosecutors raided the offices of social media platform X on Tuesday as part of a preliminary investigation into allegations including spreading child sexual abuse images and deepfakes. They have also summoned billionaire owner Elon Musk for questioning.” In different times, this may have been an investigation American officials would have led. Instead, we can expect a lot of pushback, and probably some threats, from the US government.

+ Reuters: Despite new curbs, Elon Musk’s Grok at times produces sexualized images – even when told subjects didn’t consent.

+ The missing guardrails on xAI are no mistake. They were removed to boost the app’s popularity. WaPo (Gift Article): Inside Musk’s bet to hook users that turned Grok into a porn generator.

+ This is no longer just a story about a social network or a consumer AI program. “The biggest merger in history, with an asterisk, just happened: SpaceX has acquired xAI to create a $1.25 trillion giant. It’s an all-stock deal — and the stock is private (and privately valued, hence the asterisk), though SpaceX plans to go public later this year.” The Numbers, and Questions, Behind Musk’s Mega-Merger. (Tired: Too big to fail. Wired: Too big to care.)