A child rights advocacy organisation in the United States is accusing Google of bypassing parental authority by allowing children to disable parental supervision over Google accounts after they turn 13. Melissa McKay, president of the Digital Childhood Institute, stated on LinkedIn that Google sent her 12-year-old an email that will unlock additional tools once he turns 13, posting screenshots of the email. Among the changes, once children turn the age of 13, they can turn off supervised experiences on YouTube and can add payment methods to Google Pay. Parents will no longer be able to block apps, turn on location sharing without the permission of the child user or block access to payment features. "Google is asserting authority over a boundary that does not belong to them. It reframes parents as a temporary inconvenience to be outgrown and positions corporate platforms as the default replacement," McKay said in a post on LinkedIn.

Apple's Siri AI will be powered by Gemini Neither company has responded to Engadget's request for comment. The two (frequently virtue-signaling) companies have inexplicably allowed Grok and X to remain in their app stores -- even as Musk's chatbot reportedly continues to produce the material. On Wednesday, a coalition of women's and progressive advocacy groups called on Tim Cook and Sundar Pichai to uphold their own rules and remove the apps. The open letters to Apple and Google were signed by 28 groups. Among them are the women's advocacy group Ultraviolet, the parents' group ParentsTogether Action and the National Organization for Women.

Apple's Siri AI will be powered by Gemini Governor Gavin Newsom called for an investigation into xAI. An illustration photo shows Grok logo displayed on a smartphone with the xAI logo in the background . California authorities have launched an investigation into xAI following weeks of reports that the chatbot was generating sexualized images of children. The statement cited a report that more than half of the 20,000 images generated by xAI between Christmas and New Years depicted people in minimal clothing, including some that appeared to be children. We have zero tolerance for the AI-based creation and dissemination of nonconsensual intimate images or of child sexual abuse material," Bonta said. "Today, my office formally announces an investigation into xAI to determine whether and how xAI violated the law.

California's top prosecutor has launched an investigation into the spread of sexualised AI deepfakes generated by Elon Musk's AI model Grok. Attorney General Rob Bonta said in a statement announcing the probe: The avalanche of reports detailing the non-consensual, sexually explicit material that xAI has produced and posted online in recent weeks is shocking. California's inquiry comes as British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer warns of possible action against X. In Wednesday's statement, Bonta said: This material, which depicts women and children in nude and sexually explicit situations, has been used to harass people across the internet. The Democratic prosecutor urged xAI to take immediate action.

Elon Musk has been promoting Grok's popularity as if it were a piece of productivity software. Elon Musk has been promoting Grok's popularity as if it were a piece of productivity software. Today, we discuss Elon Musk's rosy depiction of Grok's image generation controversy; the seven-figure panic among Silicon Valley billionaires over a proposed wealth tax in California, though with one notable exception; and how AI and robotics have revitalized the Consumer Electronics Showcase. The firestorm over the Grok AI tool has been raging for more than a week now, and it shows no signs of dying down. Last week, I wrote about the rising backlash against Elon Musk's Grok AI tool, which in recent weeks has allowed users to generate thousands of sexualized images of women.

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood says she has lost confidence in West Midlands Police's chief constable after Israeli football fans were banned from a match against Aston Villa. Mahmood told MPs a damning review from the policing watchdog over the intelligence that led to Maccabi Tel Aviv fans being banned showed a failure of leadership. The force has apologised saying it did not deliberately distort evidence that was used by Birmingham's Safety Advisory Group for the 6 November game . Chief Constable Craig Guildford remains in post, but faces a meeting on 27 January to be questioned by Police and Crime Commissioner Simon Foster who has the authority to sack him. Mahmood told the Commons on Wednesday she intended to restore the power for home secretaries to dismiss chief constables who fail their communities.

When a police force is supposed to seek the truth and uphold the law, what happens when the evidence they present to officials and the public is, as Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood put it, exaggerated or untrue? The police inspectorate has concluded the leaders of West Midlands Police fell foul of confirmation bias. In simple terms, that means senior officers had already reached a decision and were looking for intelligence to justify it. The list of errors and inaccuracies set out in an independent review of the decision-making that led to fans of Israeli football club Maccabi Tel Aviv being banned from attending a fixture at Villa Park in November have been described by Mahmood as damning. They include: A report of a football match in an intelligence report produced using AI which never happened; a twice-repeated denial by senior police leaders to MPs that AI had not been relied on to produce the inaccurate report; the claim that local Jewish groups had been consulted on the move when they had not been; inaccurately presenting evidence from Dutch police reports from a previous fixture involving the club.

"We're going to get into a period of potentially unprecedented I.P.O. "But we are confident they're executable given the scale of these companies and the investor interest." These listings could create an enormous bonanza for Wall Street and Silicon Valley after years of lackluster offerings. They could set off a feeding frenzy among public market investors who have been waiting to get a piece of the A.I. boom, and Wall Street banks stand to make hundreds of millions facilitating the listings. That is stoking more excitement for the A.I. boom as it enters its fourth year, even as the question of a bubble intensifies.

Things to Do in L.A. Tap to enable a layout that focuses on the article. California launches investigation into child porn on Elon Musk's AI site This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . California opened an investigation into Elon Musk's xAI company, alleging its Grok chatbot creates sexually explicit deepfakes of real people and child pornography. The AI tool allows users to morph photos into explicit images and post them publicly on X.

Apple's Siri AI will be powered by Gemini There's no good reason Grok should still be able to generate images. Generative AI, we are repeatedly told, is a transformative and complicated technology. So complicated that its own creators are unable to explain why it acts the way it does, and so transformative that we'd be fools to stand in the way of progress. Even when progress resembles a machine for undressing strangers without their consent on an unprecedented scale, as has been the case of late with Elon Musk's Grok chatbot. I have been informed this morning that X is acting to ensure full compliance with UK law.