GROK DIRTY TO ME

The Trump administration is throwing down for Elon Musk’s right to create weird, digital, non-consensual porn.

• Countries around the world are freaking out about Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot launched by weirdo rich guy Elon Musk and integrated into X, his social media platform. Why all the outrage? Grok is letting users digitally undress women without their consent, and reportedly even create suggestive images of children — a feature that other AI chatbots prohibit.

• But President Donald Trump’s team wants the world to know that no one can stand in the way of Elon’s most heinous ideas. And they’re literally threatening America’s closest ally over the aspiring trillionaire’s ability to allow users to nudify anyone they want. What’s more, Trump’s Pentagon announced plans to weave Grok deeply into the U.S. military, literally weaponizing the app that recently went berserk and started calling itself “MechaHitler.”

• The U.K. government is threatening to ban X. The country’s media regulator, Ofcom, has launched an investigation of the app. But a top Trump official suggested there may be no limit to American punishment if the U.K. dares to try and clean up Musk’s dirty chatbot.

• “I would say from America’s perspective ... nothing is off the table when it comes to free speech,” Sarah Rogers, a top State Department official, said in an interview this morning. “Let’s wait and see what Ofcom does and we’ll see what America does in response.”

• The UK, of course, is hardly alone. Indonesia and Malaysia became the first countries to ban Grok over the controversy — framing its image generation as “a serious violation of human rights” — as others continue to speak out.

• “It’s really something to see the Trump administration engage in porn diplomacy, defending users’ ability to create fantasy porn in a horrifying violation of people’s privacy,” Sean Savett, a former National Security Council spokesperson under Biden, told What A Day. “It’s a potent symbol of how unpopular billionaire tech bros like Elon Musk are controlling government policy and pushing the administration to adopt very unpopular policies and the wrong side of a viral issue.”

• Amid the backlash, X limited image generation… to paid users only. I asked Grok whether those customers can still “generate images of women with fewer clothes on.” It answered: “The restriction reduced the flood of public, free misuse (thousands of images per hour at peak), but it did not eliminate the possibility for paying users.” So… the solution is to make people pay to undress people without their consent?

Trump’s Grok defense comes as Musk is welcomed back into MAGA’s inner circle.

• Musk appears to be back in Trump’s good graces, after a blowup last summer when the billionaire famously accused the president of being in the Epstein files (which, of course, he was). Musk dined with Trump and Melania last week. He’s spending tons of money to help the GOP in the midterms. Today he offered free Starlink satellite internet service in Iran amid Trump’s call to support the country’s anti-government protestors.

• Grok will soon be given access to classified information on the so-called Department of War’s servers. This is the same chatbot that went nuts last summer, praising Hitler, accusing a user with a common Jewish last name of “celebrating the tragic deaths of white kids” in floods in Texas, and publishing disturbing sexual fantasies. (Many of the posts were later deleted.) But if you have any concerns about Grok’s military use, rest assured: “AI will not be woke,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said in a speech yesterday. Phew. I feel better already.

• Grok may be gaining power (via the government) and notoriety (via the internet). But it’s worth pointing out that the chatbot isn’t even good at what it does. “Grok itself by most measures is still a B-list contestant in the AI market,” Matthew Kirschenbaum, a professor of AI at the University of Virginia wrote. It’s also tied to Musk’s own peculiar perspective on the world, he added.

Grok deserves to be dismantled, Kirschenbaum said: “Its mechanisms should be taken apart under bright lights, in much the same way people learn how to defuse a bomb.”

HAVANA NORMAL ONE

Is the infamous Havana Syndrome real? That curious ailment that may have afflicted dozens of American diplomats and spies over the past decade?

The U.S. government has shelled out at least ten million bucks to try and find out.

The Pentagon has been testing a device that investigators believe could be linked to the bizarre condition, CNN reports. The origin of the symptoms — dizziness, vertigo, headaches, among others — have been hotly debated. Some victims described being hit by an “invisible beam of energy,” possibly from a Russian device. Many people believe these folks are merely imagining things.

But the U.S. government is still trying to get to the bottom of this strange story. In the final days of the Biden administration, the Defense Department spent “eight figures” on the bizarre piece of technology, according to CNN. “Although the device is not entirely Russian in origin, it contains Russian components,” the outlet writes.

I’m really curious how the government has been testing this thing….

WHAT ELSE? 👀

The Trump administration painted a military plane to look like a civilian plane, and hid its ammunition in the fuselage, in an attack on an alleged Venezuelan drug boat that killed 11 people, the New York Times reports. Disguising a military aircraft during an attack is a war crime called perfidy, according to experts who spoke with the Times, including Retired Maj. Gen. Steven J. Lepper. A White House spokesperson told the paper: “The strike was fully consistent with the law of armed conflict.”

Donald Trump canceled meetings with Iranian officials today, and posted an online message to protestors in the country that “HELP IS ON THE WAY.” The death toll inside Iran could be as high as 12,000, according to CBS News. “My customers talk about Trump’s reaction while wondering if he plans a military strike against the Islamic Republic,” one Iranian shopkeeper told the Associated Press.

About 1.4 million fewer Americans enrolled in Obamacare this year, after Republican lawmakers refused to extend subsidies that would’ve kept premiums from skyrocketing. Is this what people voted for?

The Supreme Court appears likely to let states ban transgender women and girls from participating in school sports, following oral arguments this morning.

GOP House lawmakers are seeking to hold former President Bill Clinton in contempt for skipping a deposition this morning on the Epstein files, which he’s included in multiple times. Before the deposition date, the Clintons said they wouldn’t appear: “Every person has to decide when they have seen or had enough and are ready to fight for this country, its principles and its people, no matter the consequences,”they wrote. “For us, now is that time.”

LIGHT AT THE END… ☀️

Six federal prosecutors quit amid the Department of Justice’s push to investigate the wife of Renee Good, the mother killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis last week.

NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani and Donald Trump regularly text each other. I don’t know if this is good news, but I’d like to imagine Mamdani texting him “u r fascist” at 2:15 a.m.

Inflation in December remained steady. But Trump’s economy, which already isn’t doing too hot, is facing two consequential tests: His attack on Jerome Powell, and the Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling on his tariff policy.

Discount grocery store chain Aldi is opening more than 180 new stores across the country this year, even as Trump screws around with the economy. Free idea: Offer a discount on TACOs.

Seventy percent of cancer patients now survive at least five years after their diagnosis, according to the American Cancer Society. It’s a major milestone for science: In the 1970s, only half of patients lived five years or longer.

Mattel launched its first autistic Barbie, equipped with a fidget spinner, noise-canceling headphones, and a tablet with communication apps. The doll is about “showing children that whatever you need to feel okay in the world … are okay to use, and you can use those with pride,” Ellie Middleton, an activist and author on books about neurodiversity, told the Associated Press.

A man visiting his parents in Greece found a children’s book in their home that had been checked out of a Virginia library in 1989 — and he returned it. “Harry the Dirty Dog,” the man learned, must’ve been checked out for him when he was 5 years old. The library stopped charging late fees years ago, luckily, but the book’s return “made my day,” the branch manager said.