The furore over Grok, X, AI and sexualised content highlights the urgent need to assess how much power should we allow tech companies to have, and if they can ever be trusted.
What has become clear is that there was a lack of urgent action to deal with grievous harm, such that governments must ban services and rush legislation to enable action.
If tech companies can faciliate activities the majority of us consider should be illegal and corporations do not have any kind of social conscious or ability to quickly manage the risk, do we need to fix the system that allows corporate bad behaviour?
Our governments can't be forever firefighting when there are so many other issues requiring their attention. It's not efficient, nor in the public interest.
I think what has also become clear is the complete failure of tech organisations to ensure they prevent harm, that they aren't creating tools weaponised against us. What else would they be failing to do, and why should they not be accountable? Ultimately they are run by people who we should demand are responsible citizens. The future of tech, AI, X and Grok seems to be at a major historocal crisis point.
