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January 2, 2026, 8:25 PM
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| Bloomberg: |
xAI's Grok says “lapses in safeguards” led it to create sexualized images of people, including minors, in response to X user prompts; X took some images down — Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok has created sexualized images of people including minors …
More: CNBC, Reuters, BBC, The Present Age, The Register, Spitfire News, Forbes, Engadget, The Guardian, Politico, The Verge, Ars Technica, seangoedecke.com, Mediaite, Straight Arrow News, Los Angeles Times, MediaPost, PetaPixel, Axios, New York Post, The Decoder, The Record, The Economic Times, Tom's Guide, Financial Times, The Hill, Euractiv, Mashable, CBS News, CNBC-TV18, MediaNama, The Hans India, Metro.co.uk, Joe.My.God., and KnowTechie
X: @grok, @elonmusk, @grok, @parsatajik, @samanthataghoy, @mehdirhasan, @andrewcurran_, @snazzylabs, @8ap, @arictoler, @ednewtonrex, @miles_brundage, @ogdfarmer, @theo_wayt, @alexinexxx, @icyvert, @dril, @mrjeffu, @jj_denhollander, @whatapityonyou, @altymcaltalt3, @miles_brundage, @electricfutures, @itsbighonkin, @sarafortexlege, @adamlowisz, @robshrum, @baracenler, and @clusterbitch_. LinkedIn: Melanie Ensign
| Maggie Harrison Dupré / Futurism: |
On top of nonconsensual porn images, X users seem to be using Grok to alter images to depict real women being sexually abused, humiliated, hurt, and even killed — Earlier this week, a troubling trend emerged on X-formerly-Twitter as people started asking Elon Musk's chatbot Grok to unclothe images of real people.
More: The Atlantic, Ars Technica, Copyleaks, TMZ.com, Inc42 Media, Türkiye Today, Telegraph, Gizmodo, The New World, CBS News, and NDTV Profit
Bluesky: @mharrisondupre, @stevepeers, @caseynewton, @charlotte2153, @kincsobiro, and @mharrisondupre
| Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: |
India orders X to stop Grok from generating obscene content, giving it 72 hours to submit an action-taken report or risk losing its “safe harbor” protections — India has ordered Elon Musk's X to make immediate technical and procedural changes to its AI chatbot Grok after users … | Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Pebble unveils the Pebble Round 2, a smartwatch with a rounded screen and basic health and activity tracking but no heart rate monitor, shipping in May for $199 — Shortly after bringing back the Pebble smart watch and launching a low-cost AI smart ring, Pebble is readying yet another new product: the Pebble Round 2.
More: Pebble, Tick Talk w/ Eric Migicovsky on YouTube, MacRumors, PCMag, Parker Ortolani, Android Headlines, TechRadar, KnowTechie, Techaeris, XDA Developers, 9to5Google, ZDNET, The Verge, T3, iPhone in Canada, Digital Trends, Lifehacker, CNET, Android Authority, Android Police, Engadget, How-To Geek, Droid Life, TechEBlog, and Gizmodo
| CNBC: |
Ilya Lichtenstein, sentenced in Nov. 2024 to five years in prison for hacking Bitfinex, has been released early due to First Step Act, Trump's prison-reform law — The Russian-U.S. national who hacked crypto exchange Bitfinex and stole nearly 120,000 bitcoin said he has been freed …
More: LAW.com, The Register, The Verge, Blockonomi, Coinspeaker, CoinDesk, BeInCrypto, The Block, DL News, Cryptonews, The Crypto Times, and Alternet.org
| Melissa Heikkilä / Financial Times: |
Yann LeCun admits that Llama 4's “results were fudged a little bit”, and that the team used different models for different benchmarks to give better results — The AI pioneer on stepping down from Meta, the limits of large language models — and the launch of his new start-up
More: Business Insider and Implicator.ai
X: @luke_metro, @pfau, @gjmcgowan, @minhsmind, @modestproposal1, @stefanfschubert, and @stefanfschubert. LinkedIn: Yann LeCun
| Carl Franzen / VentureBeat: |
xAI launches Grok Business, priced at $30 per seat/month, for SMBs, and Grok Enterprise, whose price is not listed publicly, for larger organizations — xAI has launched Grok Business and Grok Enterprise, positioning its flagship AI assistant as a secure, team-ready platform for organizational use.
More: The Information and The Indian Express
Bluesky: @thecleric, @bmsimp, @followtheh, @jmberger.com, @carnage4life, @joeuchill, @paularmstrongtbd, @scottjshapiro, @caseynewton, and @leokitty
| Michael Kan / PCMag: |
California launched a free tool on January 1 that lets residents request the deletion of their personal data from over 500 registered data brokers — Reclaiming your digital privacy is getting easier in California. The state has launched a free tool that simplifies the opt-out process …
More: State of California, Palm Springs Desert Sun, Washington Post, and NBC Bay Area
Forums: r/LosAngeles and r/privacy
| Dan Wang: |
Tech analyst Dan Wang reflects on the Chinese Communist Party vs. Silicon Valley, AI and manufacturing, how China and the US are building the future, and more — One way that Silicon Valley and the Communist Party resemble each other is that both are serious, self-serious, and indeed, completely humorless.
More: Marginal Revolution, Blockchain.News, and CNBC
X: @zdch, @zhengdongwang, @kevinakwok, @hassankhan, @hassankhan, @nabeelqu, @buccocapital, @chr1sa, @greg_ip, @stevehou, @s8mb, @mattzeitlin, @bgurley, @richardhanania, @joshdcaplan, @mylesudland, @renesellmann, @rtylercrown, @conorsen, @jchengwsj, @discoplomacy, @eric_is_weird, @ctbeiser, @mattzeitlin, @sbanjo, @mikeelgan, @danwwang, @birdyword, @phequals7, @rmcentush, and @richardhanania
LinkedIn: James Lloyd and Mark Pesce
Bluesky: @gnat, @frankpasquale, and @conorsen. Mastodon: @yiningkarlli@mastodon …. Forums: Hacker News
| Bill Allison / Bloomberg: |
Filing: OpenAI President and co-founder Greg Brockman donated $25M to Trump's super PAC, MAGA Inc., in H2 2025; Crypto.com operator Foris DAX donated $20M — President Donald Trump's super political action committee raised $102 million in the second half of 2025, fueled by eight-figure donations …
More: HuffPost, SFGATE, New York Times, CNN, and Politico
| Simon Goodley / The Guardian: |
Uber rewrote its UK driver contracts to act as an agent, rather than a supplier, of taxi services outside London, to avoid the UK's new 20% “taxi tax” on fares — Hailing app will now act as agent rather than supplier outside London, avoiding VAT requirement| Rachel Clun / BBC: |
As of January 1, UK crypto buyers are required to share their account details with tax officials or face penalties, as the UK seeks to collect unpaid taxes — People buying cryptocurrency in the UK now need to share their account details or face penalties, in changes that came into effect on 1 January.| Bloomberg: |
Chinese AI chip startup Biren's stock jumped almost 76% in its trading debut in Hong Kong, after the company raised ~$717M in its IPO priced at ~$2.52 per share — Shares of Shanghai Biren Technology Co. jumped almost 76% in their trading debut on Friday, marking the best …
More: TrendForce, Nikkei Asia, South China Morning Post, Reuters, The Information, Caixin Global, and Reuters
| Sneha Kumar / Reuters: |
Baidu says its AI chip unit Kunlunxin has confidentially filed for a Hong Kong IPO, aiming for a spin-off; a December fundraising reportedly valued it at ~$3B — Chinese internet search giant Baidu (9888.HK) said on Friday its AI chip unit Kunlunxin has confidentially filed a listing application … Sponsor Posts
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Mastodon: @jknodlseder@mastodon.social, @knud@mastodon.social, and @hannorein@mastodon.social. Forums: r/space
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X: @briancalbrecht, @saikatc, @harryh, @jankulveit, @daniel_271828, @krishnanrohit, @besttrousers, @jsevillamol, @mortenstostad, @robinhanson, @t_holden, @erikbryn, @daveg, @dwarkesh_sp, @stevehou, @deepdishenjoyer, @alltheyud, @elocinationn, @garrytan, @garrytan, @briancalbrecht, @pawtrammell, @pawtrammell, @yonashav, @briancalbrecht, @tszzl, @jackwiseman_, @alltheyud, @digeconlab, @mylesudland, @ks_kulk, @garrytan, @drydenwtbrown, @dwarkesh_sp, @dwarkesh_sp, and @dwarkesh_sp
LinkedIn: Octavian Adrian Tanase and Viktor Shvets
| Vincent Chow / South China Morning Post: |
More: ZDNET, arXiv.org, Business Insider, WinBuzzer, Bloomberg, Constellation Research, Computerworld, Implicator.ai, Bloomberg, Pandaily, SiliconANGLE, and Blockonomi