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?
Are we becoming too dependent on technology? With the latest developments on the political struggles in Iran, we've learnt that it loses $1.56 million from its economy every single hour the internet is down. What would be the figures for the UK, US, Europe, China and Russia? We're increasingly faced with the thorny questions we can no longer ignore.
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.
When corporations do not respect or listen to governments, it sends a message about whether they are willing to adhere to the social contracts and laws we have in place.
Sexualised content also brings cultural and religious concerns into the mix, and in a global context will impact funding and ultimately profitability for companies. Money talks and that is also when companies listen.
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 is at a major historical crisis point.
You may also be interested in:
- BBC - X to stop Grok AI from undressing images of real people after backlash
- Sky News - Grok Controversy Explainer
- Guardian - The World Less Safe
- CNN - Grok blocked by Indonesia, Malaysia over sexualized images in world first
- Forbes - Iran Kill Switch
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