Condemnation of Elon Musk’s AI chatbot reached ‘tipping point’ after French raid, Australia’s eSafety chief says
The eSafety commissioner, Julie Inman Grant, says global regulatory focus on Elon Musk’s X has reached a “tipping point” after a raid of the company’s offices in France this week.The raid on Tuesday was part of an investigation that included alleged offences of complicity in the possession and organised distribution of child abuse images, violation of image rights through sexualised deepfakes, and denial of crimes against humanity.A number of other countries – including the UK and Australia – and the EU have launched investigations in the past few weeks into X after its AI chatbot, Grok, was used to mass-produce sexualised images of women and children in response to user requests.Inman Grant told Guardian Australia: “It’s nice to no longer be a soloist, and be part of a choir.“We’ve been having so many productive discussions with other regulators around the globe and researchers that are doing important work in this space,” she said.
“I think this really represents a tipping point.This is global condemnation of carelessly developed technology that could be generating child sexual abuse material and non-consensual, sexual imagery at scale.”After the outcry, X turned off Grok image-generation for all but paid users, and vowed to make changes to prevent users from declothing real people.Sign up: AU Breaking News emailThe moves against X came ahead of the eSafety commissioner’s latest report, released on Thursday, which examines how tech platforms are preventing child sexual abuse and exploitation on their platforms.Notices were issued to Apple, Discord, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Skype and WhatsApp in July 2024 that required six-monthly updates from the platforms.
The Microsoft-owned Skype no longer exists,Inman Grant said there had been some improvements from the platforms, including detection of known child abuse material and prevention of livestreaming of abuse outside messaging apps, but the platforms still fell short,Apple, which Inman Grant said had previously viewed privacy and safety as being mutually exclusive, had come the farthest,“[Apple is] really putting an investment … and engaging and developing their communication safety features and evolving those,”In 2024 the company began rolling out features to allow children to report nude images and video being sent to them directly to Apple, which could then report the messages to police.
But Inman Grant said there was still inadequate detection on FaceTime for live child abuse or exploitation.She levelled similar criticisms at Meta for Messenger, Google Meet, Snapchat, Microsoft Teams, WhatsApp and Discord.A number of the services were not using language analysis to proactively detect sexual extortion, she said.“It’s surprising to me that they’re not attending to the services where the most egregious and devastating harms are happening to kids.It’s like they’re not totally weatherproofing the entire house.
They’re putting up spackle on the walls and maybe taping the windows, but not fixing the roof.“It’s interesting to me to see how patchy their deployment of these safety technologies are.”Improvements included: Microsoft detecting known child abuse material on OneDrive and in email attachments in Outlook; Snap reducing the time to process reports of child abuse material from 90 minutes to 11 minutes; and Google launching sensitive content warnings that blur images of nudity before viewing.The companies will be required to report to eSafety two more times – in March and August this year.Inman Grant said the transparency reports had opened the “black box” on what the companies were doing and would help with future investigations.
X was not included in the notices, and challenged eSafety’s issuing of a similar notice in March 2024 in a case that is still ongoing.
Bank of England expected to leave interest rates on hold; UK construction activity shrinks again – business live
Good morning, and welcome to our rolling coverage of business, the financial markets and the world economy.Interest rates on both sides of the channel are likely to be left on hold today, but relief may be coming for UK borrowers within months.Both the Bank of England (BoE) and the European Central Bank (ECB) are expected to maintain their respective interest rates unchanged today.UK interest rates are currently 3.75%, and the rise in inflation in December to 3
Shell to hand investors bigger payouts despite continued fall in profits
Shell has said it will continue to hand investors bumper payouts despite reporting its third consecutive year of falling profits following weaker oil prices.The oil company reported a 22% fall in adjusted earnings to $18.5bn (£13.6bn) for 2025, down from $23.7bn in 2024, owing to steadily falling global oil market prices
What does the disappearance of a $100bn deal mean for the AI economy?
Did the circular AI economy just wobble? Last week it was reported that a much-discussed $100bn deal – announced last September – between Nvidia and OpenAI might not be happening at all.This was a circular arrangement through which the chipmaker would supply the ChatGPT developer with huge sums of money that would largely go towards the purchase of its own chips.It is this type of deal that has alarmed some market watchers, who detect a whiff of the 1999-2000 dotcom bubble in these transactions.Now it seems that Nvidia was not as solid on this investment as had been widely believed, according to the Wall Street Journal. Negotiations had not progressed, with Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s chief executive, privately emphasising that the deal was “non-binding” and “not finalised”
Google Pixel Buds 2a review: great Bluetooth earbuds at a good price
Google’s latest budget Pixel earbuds are smaller, lighter, more comfortable and have noise cancelling, plus a case that allows you to replace the battery at home.The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more.The Pixel Buds 2a uses the design of the excellent Pixel Buds Pro 2 with a few high-end features at a more palatable £109 (€129/$129/A$239) price, undercutting rivals in the process
From London to LX: the British mastermind behind the Seahawks’ standout Super Bowl defense
Midway through the 2023 NFL season, Dallas Cowboys star edge rusher Micah Parsons was frustrated. Asked about the source – a feeling of being held by opponents all the time – Parsons credited his defensive line coach Aden Durde with keeping him in check.“[Coach Durde] pulled me aside and said, ‘You gotta remember, you’re Micah fucking Parsons,” he recalled. “‘This shit is going to happen. You just gotta keep going
The Patriots’ Robert Kraft posed as an NFL voice of reason – then fell back in line for Trump | Howard Bryant
During the worst of it, when Philando Castile and Alton Sterling were killed by police a decade ago and Colin Kaepernick took a knee in protest, when a widespread reaction was to tell the highly accomplished, overwhelmingly Black professional athletes they were un-American, or well-paid farmhands who needed to get back to work, or both, and some of his peers in the ownership class were releasing players as punishment for joining the protest, it was New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft who positioned himself as the voice of reason.Kraft attempted to broker peace between the ownership hawks who saw the high-paid kneelers as ungrateful mutineers and, after decades of docility, the radicalized players unwilling to collect their checks in exchange for political silence. Kraft encouraged two of his players – the twins Devin and Jason McCourty – into deeper citizenship, to engage with the legal and political systems and promote reforms. As a sign of compassion and a willingness to listen, Kraft visited the incarcerated rapper Meek Mill, and later the two partnered with another artist, Jay-Z, on various criminal justice initiatives.On 6 January 2021, when so many of the voices loudest in their opposition to player protests, the ones who said the dissenting ballplayers were treasonous for disrespecting both the American flag and law enforcement at the behest of outgoing president Donald Trump stormed the US Capitol and contributed to the deaths of one policeman and the trauma and eventual deaths of several others, it was Kraft who was apparently so disgusted that he stopped talking to Trump, publicly distancing himself from the man to whose inauguration four years earlier he had donated $1m
Six Nations 2026 predictions: our writers on who will win and why
Winter Olympics 2026: all your questions about the Milano Cortina Games, answered
Winter Olympics briefing: curling subplots abound as lights go out on first action
Hilary Knight, Team USA’s north star, chases one more Olympic hockey gold
Lando Norris driven to defend F1 title but says he has ‘different mentality to Max’
Welcome to new cold war as world descends on Italy amid global political chaos