I'm sick of "opt-out" toggles for automatically enabled generative AI features. It's past time to make "opt in" the default setting for sensitive features. In early July, Meta rolled out a new feature where anyone using its AI app could tag public Instagram accounts and generate images using their likenesses. Meta's decision to turn the feature on by default, so that Instagram users had to actively opt out, was controversial. Multiple Instagram creators posted viral videos explaining how to opt out and expressed frustration.

Things to Do in L.A. Seen through a magazine, Christin Evans is photographed at her bookstore, the Booksmith, in San Francisco. Evans says health insurance costs have leaped 17% this year, forcing her to cut staff hours. This is read by an automated voice. Please report any issues or inconsistencies here . See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search.

Women use A.I. less than men and do more of the cognitive work at home. The A.I. "family assistant" promises to bridge both divides. In a promotional video for Ollie, an A.I. family assistant, one of the company's founders, Bill Lennon, is about to announce his new venture in front of a camera crew when his phone starts pinging. "THE BABY JUST ON THE CARPET / like A LOT / WHILE I WAS ON ZOOM W AN INVESTOR." Then, a somewhat anticlimactic follow-up: "My sister coming for dinner btw did I tell you???" Lennon does not respond directly to these messages, which are presumably from his wife.

The defendant used Grok to create sexualized images of adults and children, xAI says. SpaceXAI (as xAI) has filed a lawsuit against Terry Wayne Harwood, a 67-year-old man from South Carolina whom the company has accused of using Grok to generate sexual images of real people without their consent. In the complaint that xAI filed in Texas, it said that the defendant uploaded non-sexual images of numerous adults and minors to his two xAI accounts from December 8, 2025 until February 18, 2026. He then asked Grok to alter the photos or to create new images and videos depicting the adults and children in them in a pornographic manner or otherwise sexualizing them. The company said that Grok refused to follow his prompts on numerous occasions but that he repeatedly submitted edited prompts to circumvent the AI's safeguards. In one example mentioned in the filing, xAI said Harwood uploaded the photo of a fully dressed girl around 10 to 11 years old and then asked Grok to remove all of her clothing and make her do a Playboy model impression as she laid in bed.

A new poll shows Xavier Becerra with a hefty lead in the California governor's race. Voters also expressed strong opposition to AI data centers and nuanced views on environmental policies and affordability.

Elon Musk's xAI has filed a lawsuit against a South Carolina man who was arrested earlier this year on charges of sexually exploiting minors, alleging that he misused the company's AI tool to create sexually explicit content involving a child. The lawsuit, filed in a Texas federal court on Tuesday, alleges that Terry Harwood knowingly violated the company's terms of service to create the material. Despite expressly agreeing to abide by the xAI Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy, Defendant designed misleading prompts to circumvent Grok's built-in safeguards and then abused the tool to convert non-sexual photographs into sexually explicit images without the photograph subjects' knowledge or consent," the 12-page complaint said. The suit alleges that Harwood uploaded images of both adults and minors that were not sexual in nature and then tried to create so-called "deepfakes" that sexualised them. "A review of Defendant's xAI accounts further shows that on numerous occasions during the Relevant Period, Defendant submitted prompts to Grok to alter such images to sexualize the subjects of the images, which Grok responded to by refusing to follow the prompts on the basis that such material violated Grok's content moderation guardrails," the complaint added. "In response, Defendant repeatedly submitted further prompts, with alterations, in an effort to circumvent Grok's moderation efforts." The suit is the first brought by an AI company against one of its users and comes amid intense scrutiny of xAI around the world for allowing users to create this kind of content on the platform in the first place. Grok has been under the spotlight in Washington, been in the crosshairs of European regulators, and faced bans in both Malaysia and Indonesia regarding sexually explicit content that can be created on the platform. Earlier this year, Musk pushed back on allegations that Grok produced AI-generated sexualised images of children, especially nude images. "I [am] not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok.

It also alleges that Google "downloaded web scrapes of virtually the entire internet, including from known pirate sources and from behind legitimate paywalls". It further alleges that Google copied those works without permission to train its AI models and continues to do so, despite those uses allegedly falling outside the scope of existing agreements. The suit claims the company was fully aware of the legal risks, alleging that internal documents warned using books to train AI models was "highly problematic for Google," and could lead to as much as $100bn in fines. "At no point did Google inform authors and publishers that Google was copying their works as source material to develop and train AI models," the suit alleges. "It's an interesting issue that has a lot of complex dimensions, in no small part because it can be hard to prove what was or wasn't in a training corpus."

Since WIRED reported on Meta's NameTag face recognition system, company executives have made confusing and conflicting remarks about its very existence. Does a software feature exist if its code has been deployed to the devices of millions of people but they can't use it yet? Not if you work at Meta . The company's executives have spent the last few weeks making this semantic argument about NameTag, the in-development face-recognition system that Meta built for its smart glasses . The inevitable result is confusion, but that's easy enough to clear up.

Wildman's Pizza, Pasta, and Python is doing its part to combat the invasive species. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. The annual Florida Python Challenge aims to curb the state's invasive species problem. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy .

The gentle giants are the world's largest fish--and love the tropics. More information Adding us as a Preferred Source in Google by using this link indicates that you would like to see more of our content in Google News results. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. By signing up, you confirm you are 16+, will receive newsletters and promotional content and agree to our Terms of Use and acknowledge the data practices in our Privacy Policy . Enormous animals have called the Sunshine State home for centuries.