Why isn’t anyone stopping Grok?

today’s episode of decoder X is about Grok and Elon Musk. For several weeks now we have been in one of the worst, most disturbing, and most stupidly irresponsible AI controversies in the short history of generic AI. Grok, the chatbot created by Elon Musk’s xAI, is capable of creating all types of AI-generated images, including non-consensual intimate images of women and minors.

Because Grok is linked to X, formerly known as Twitter, users can ask Grok to edit any image on that platform, and Grok will most likely do so and then distribute that image across the platform. Over the past few weeks, It is now clear that Elon Wants Grok is capable of doing this, and he is very angry at anyone who tries to stop him, especially Various governments around the world Who are threatening to take legal action against X.

This is one of those situations where if you describe the problem to someone, they will intuitively feel that someone should be able to do something about it. It’s true – someone needs to be able to do something about this kind of one-click harassment machine that is generating images of women and children without their consent. But who has that power, and what they can do with it, is a very complex question, and it’s tied up in the thorny mess of the history that is content moderation and the legal precedents that underpin it. So I invited Rhianna Pfefferkorn onto the show to talk to me about all this.

Riana has joined me in the past to explain some complex Internet moderation issues. Currently, he is a Policy Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, and he has a deep background in what regulators and lawmakers in the US and around the world could do about a problem like Grok, if they wanted to.

So Riana really helped me work through the legal framework here, the different actors involved who have leverage and can exert pressure to influence the situation, and where we can see all this happening as XAI does damage control but continues to ship this product on a large scale that causes real harm.

Here’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot as this whole situation has unfolded. Over the past 20 years or so, the idea of ​​content moderation has come in and out of vogue as a variety of social and community platforms have waxed and waned. For example, the history of a platform like Reddit is merely a microcosm of the entire history of content moderation.

Around 2021, we hit a real high-water mark for the idea of ​​moderation and trust and safety on these platforms overall. That’s when COVID-related misinformation, election lies, QAnon conspiracies, and inciting the mob at the Capitol can actually get you banned from most major platforms… even if you’re the President of the United States.

It’s safe to say that the era of content moderation is over, and we are now in a far more anarchic and laissez-faire world. It’s possible that Elon and his porn-y image generator will push that pendulum back, but even if that happens, the consequences may be more complicated than anyone expected.

If you want to read more about what we discussed in this episode, check out these links:

_{Questions or comments about this episode? Contact us at decoder@theverge.com. We literally read every email!}