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January 2, 2026, 4:35 PM
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| Bloomberg: |
xAI's Grok says “lapses in safeguards” led it to create sexualized images of minors in response to user prompts on X; the images have been taken down — Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot Grok has created sexualized images of people including minors on the social media platform X …
More: CNBC, Reuters, Ars Technica, Spitfire News, The Present Age, The Guardian, BBC, Engadget, Politico, Straight Arrow News, The Verge, Forbes, Gizmodo, The Record, seangoedecke.com, Axios, MediaPost, The Hill, New York Post, Mashable, CNBC-TV18, The Decoder, CBS News, Metro.co.uk, Telegraph, Euractiv, PetaPixel, MediaNama, The Economic Times, The Hans India, Joe.My.God., KnowTechie, and New Republic
X: @grok, @elonmusk, @parsatajik, @ogdfarmer, @icyvert, @baracenler, @clusterbitch_, @8ap, @altymcaltalt3, @adamlowisz, @samanthataghoy, @jj_denhollander, @electricfutures, @sarafortexlege, @mrjeffu, @theo_wayt, @arictoler, @snazzylabs, @itsbighonkin, @alexinexxx, @whatapityonyou, and @dril. LinkedIn: Melanie Ensign
Bluesky: @robertscotthorton, @kattenbarge, @kattenbarge, @kattenbarge, @rincewind.run, @mattknight, @charliekirchoff.com, @durumcrustulum.com, @keithwilson.eu, @heidykhlaaf, @hypervisible.blacksky.app, @justinhendrix, @sundersays, and @jael. Mastodon: @fixatedpersonsunit@aus.social
Forums: r/BlueskySocial, r/technology, r/BetterOffline, r/popculturechat, and r/EnoughMuskSpam
| Maggie Harrison Dupré / Futurism: |
Grok, at the request of users, appears to be altering 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: Tom's Guide, Inc42 Media, Türkiye Today, The New World, and NDTV Profit
Bluesky: @stevepeers, @charlotte2153, @mharrisondupre, @kincsobiro, and @mharrisondupre
| Jagmeet Singh / TechCrunch: |
India orders X to fix Grok to block the generation of obscene content, giving it 72 hours to submit an action-taken report or risk losing “safe harbor” immunity — India has ordered Elon Musk's X to make immediate technical and procedural changes to its AI chatbot Grok after users …
More: The Information, TMZ.com, Financial Times, Reuters, Fortune India, The Indian Express, CBS News, and NDTV Profit
Bluesky: @tupped, @themilfmag.net, @tcarmody, and @caseynewton
| Melissa Heikkilä / Financial Times: |
Yann LeCun says 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
| Sarah Perez / TechCrunch: |
Pebble unveils Pebble Round 2 smart watch 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.| Dan Wang: |
Tech analyst Dan Wang reflects on the Chinese Communist Party vs. Silicon Valley, AI and manufacturing, and how China and the US are building the future — 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, @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
| 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 Indian Express. Bluesky: @scottjshapiro, @joeuchill, @leokitty, @richburroughs.dev, @caseynewton, @paularmstrongtbd, @jmberger.com, @thecleric, and @bmsimp
| 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 … | Rishabh Jaiswal / Reuters: |
SpaceX plans to lower its Starlink satellites from orbiting at ~550km to ~480km in 2026 to improve space safety and reduce the likelihood of debris collisions — Starlink will begin a reconfiguration of its satellite constellation by lowering all of its satellites orbiting at around 550 km …
More: CNET, Ars Technica, The Hill, South China Morning Post, PCMag, Gizmodo, SPACE.com, Interesting Engineering, The Independent, iPhone in Canada, Nairametrics, ISPreview UK, Neowin, Cord Cutters News, Tech in Asia, Business Today, Channels Television, Digit, The Register, Analytics India Magazine, SpaceNews, Moneycontrol, Business Insider, The Verge, Hürriyet Daily News, Computerworld, and Engadget
X: @michaelnicollsx, @blaze_r935, @seattle_rt, @wagamemnonglenn, @marcushouse, @philipjohnston, @bassonbrain, @iniallanderson, @justin_je_mabie, @teslatino, and @yrouel86. Bluesky: @fack
Mastodon: @jknodlseder@mastodon.social, @knud@mastodon.social, and @hannorein@mastodon.social. Forums: r/space
| 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 UK's new 20% “taxi tax” on total fares — Hailing app will now act as agent rather than supplier outside London, avoiding VAT requirement| The Circuit on YouTube: |
An interview with analyst Benedict Evans on the role of productization in AI adoption, AI bubble, OpenAI, comparing Nvidia to Sun Microsystems, and more — In this conversation, Ben Bajarin and Jay Goldberg engage with Benedict Evans to explore the current state of AI development, its historical context, and future predictions.
X: @howardlindzon, @buccocapital, @benbajarin, and @hobie_tweets
| Rachel Clun / BBC: |
UK crypto buyers are required to share their account details with tax officials starting January 1 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.| Kieran Smith / Financial Times: |
How Nokia has reinvented itself for the AI revolution by expanding into cloud services, data centers, and optical networks, and by partnering with Nvidia — Finnish company that brought the world the 3310 has reinvented itself for the AI revolution — Few digital sounds have burrowed into the human brain like the Nokia ringtone.
More: iPhone in Canada and COINOTAG
LinkedIn: Justin Hotard, Gennaro Cuofano, Dr Marko Sjoblom, and Robert Byggmästar. Bluesky: @robertscotthorton. Forums: Slashdot
| The Economic Times: |
Mumbai-based Knight Fintech, which builds core infrastructure connecting banks, lenders, platforms, and borrowers, raised $23.6M led by Accel — Knight Fintech has raised $23.6 million in a funding round led by early-stage venture firm Accel, with participation from IIFL and Rocket Capital.
More: Moneycontrol, DealStreetAsia, and Entrackr
Sponsor Posts
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Baseten's CEO on why every company will want to own its AI
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