Baltimore sues Elon Musk’s AI company over Grok’s fake nude images
The mayor and city council of Baltimore, Maryland, filed a lawsuit against Elon Musk’s xAI company on Tuesday, alleging that its Grok chatbot violated consumer protections by generating nonconsensual sexualized images.Baltimore’s lawsuit argues that xAI deceptively marketed Grok as a general-purpose AI assistant and X as a mainstream social media site, failing to disclose the risks, limitations and exposure to harm that come with using the platform and chatbot.The suit, filed in the circuit court for Baltimore city, argues that the court has jurisdiction over xAI given that the company advertises and operates in Baltimore.“Grok has flooded the feeds of Baltimore’s X users with NCII (non-consensual intimate imagery) and CSAM (child sexual abuse material),” the city’s complaint states.“Grok further exposed Baltimore residents to the risk that any photograph they uploaded – of themselves or of their children – could be ingested by Grok and transformed into sexually degrading deepfakes without their knowledge or consent”.
xAI did not immediately return a request for comment.xAI has faced multiple lawsuits and international investigations over its Grok AI product in recent months, following a period when the chatbot generated millions of AI-altered sexualized images earlier this year.Many of these sexualized images were created using photos of women without their consent, according to researchers at the Center for Countering Digital Hate, which also estimated that Grok produced about 23,000 sexualized images of children over an 11-day period in December and January.“We’re talking about tech companies enabling the sexual exploitation of children.Our city will not stand by and allow this to continue; it’s a threat to privacy, dignity, and public safety, and those responsible must be held accountable,” the Baltimore mayor, Brandon Scott, said in a statement.
Musk has denied any knowledge of Grok producing child sexual abuse material, stating in January that he was “not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok,Literally zero,” The company added restrictions to Grok’s image generation capabilities in earlier January following backlash and threats of regulatory action from multiple countries,Baltimore’s case is unique in that it is alleging violations of city ordinance and consumer protection, as opposed to other suits brought by individual users claiming personal and reputational harms,“The city is setting a powerful example for municipalities nationwide in confronting a novel and rapidly advancing technology – and an emerging area of law – where accountability has not yet caught up with innovation,” Adam Levitt, an attorney representing Baltimore in the case, said in a statement.
In another case against xAI filed earlier this month, three Tennessee teenage girls alleged that Grok used photos of them to create and distribute child sexual abuse material,The class-action lawsuit was the first filed by minors following Grok’s nonconsensual image generation scandal, and alleged that a third-party app used xAI’s technology to generate fully nude images of the girls which were then shared online,
MPs urge UK government to halt contract giving Palantir FCA data access
MPs have urged the government to halt its latest contract with Palantir after the Guardian revealed that the US spy-tech company is to gain access to a trove of highly sensitive UK financial regulation data.The Financial Conduct Authority, the watchdog for thousands of financial bodies from banks to hedge funds, has hired Palantir to apply its AI systems to two years’ worth of internal intelligence data to help it tackle financial crime.But the Liberal Democrats on Monday called for a government investigation into the contract, which the party said could be “a huge error of judgment”, while the Green party said it should be blocked over Palantir’s links to Donald Trump.Questioned on whether the UK was becoming “dangerously overreliant” on US tech companies including Palantir, Keir Starmer told parliament he would prefer to have more domestic capability but added: “I don’t think we’re overreliant.”Palantir was founded by the Trump-backing billionaire Peter Thiel and it supports the US and Israeli militaries and the ICE immigration crackdown
AI boom risks widening wealth divide, says BlackRock’s Larry Fink
The boom in artificial intelligence risks widening inequality, with only a handful of companies and investors likely to reap its financial rewards, the BlackRock chief executive, Larry Fink, has said.The boss of the $14tn (£10.4tn) asset manager used his annual letter to investors on Monday to highlight potential hazards around the exponential growth in AI, which has attracted rapid investment and become, he said, “central to strategic competition” between global powers such as the US and China.“The massive wealth created over the past several generations flowed mostly to people who already owned financial assets,” Fink said. “And now AI threatens to repeat that pattern at an even larger scale
Leonid Radvinsky, owner of OnlyFans, dies aged 43
Leonid Radvinsky, the owner of OnlyFans, has died of cancer at the age of 43, the company announced on Monday.“We are deeply saddened to announce the death of Leo Radvinsky. Leo passed away peacefully after a long battle with cancer,” said a spokesperson for the company, best known for subscriptions to pornographic content creators. “His family have requested privacy at this difficult time.”Radvinsky, a Ukrainian-American billionaire with a net worth of about $3
‘Kids say they take a quick look at TikTok’: a new kind of distracted driving is on the rise
As watching videos, using touchscreens, and even livestreaming behind the wheel become more common, experts warn of increased risk of crashes Jackie was on her way to a doctor’s appointment last fall when she realized her Uber driver’s eyes were not fully on the road. “He had a video playing on his phone and was intermittently looking at it,” she said. Jackie, who is 32 and lives in New Jersey, could not tell exactly what the driver was watching, but she remembers seeing shots of people talking – she guessed it was a video podcast. “I was definitely feeling a lot of dread and distress.”As they continued on their 40-minute drive down the New Jersey Turnpike – a hectic highway that is not easy driving – Jackie considered saying something
iPhone 17e review: Apple upgrades its cheapest new smartphone
The cheapest new iPhone has been upgraded for this year with a faster chip, double the storage, automatic portraits and MagSafe, providing even more of the core Apple smartphone experience for less.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The iPhone 17e is an upgraded version of the mid-range “e” line launched last year with the first iPhone 16e and is the latest member of the iPhone 17 family
Campaign groups rail against Palantir, but the UK contracts keep coming
Palantir’s latest UK contract takes the AI and data analytics company into the heart of one of Britain’s biggest industries: financial services, which accounts for 9% of the economy.The Miami-based company embedded its technology in the NHS in 2023, the police in 2024 and the military in 2025. Land and expand, they say in the tech industry. Palantir has followed the script, building contracts worth more than £500m.Now in 2026, its deal with the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) to dive into the terabytes of information it gathers gives it yet another unparalleled view of the inner workings of the British authorities
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