Techmeme
January 3, 2026, 3:40 PM

Top News

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: Reuters, CNBC, The Present Age, Security Affairs, BBC, Spitfire News, Politico, Forbes, The Register, PCMag, The Guardian, The Verge, Engadget, Financial Times, MediaNama, The A.V. Club, The American Bazaar, Tech in Asia, Ars Technica, Mediaite, Los Angeles Times, MediaPost, Mashable, seangoedecke.com, Straight Arrow News, New York Post, The Record, Axios, The Decoder, CNBC-TV18, CBS News, The Hill, Euractiv, Tom's Guide, The Economic Times, The Indian Express, Reuters, PetaPixel, Joe.My.God., The Hans India, KnowTechie, and Metro.co.uk
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.
Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch:
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 …
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 …
Dan Gallagher / Wall Street Journal:
The Groq deal shows the challenges Nvidia faces as options to deploy its cash flood narrow; its annual free cash flow has risen from $4.2B in 2020 to $80B+ now  —  Blowout AI spending fills chip maker's coffers, but Groq deal shows that company needs to think creatively
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.
Financial Times:
Dating apps are pivoting to Asia as swipe-right fatigue hits the West; India, China, and Indonesia ranked among the top five markets by downloads in 2025  —  Rising numbers of ‘goal-orientated’ women are using the apps as stigma over online dating fades  —  Online dating companies are pivoting …
More: Tech in Asia
Mishal Husain / Bloomberg:
Q&A with Kara Swisher on Sam Altman's determination to “do anything to make OpenAI win”, Elon Musk, the tech industry's Trump pivot, and more  —  After a year of dominating mega-deals and driving stock-market gains, the tech industry is poised for a pivotal 2026 that centers largely …
Bill Allison / Bloomberg:
Filing: OpenAI President Greg Brockman was the biggest donor to Trump's super PAC in H2 2025, donating $25M; 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 …

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More News

Carl Franzen / VentureBeat:

Earlier Picks

Melissa Heikkilä / Financial Times:
Dan Wang: