Luke Littler, the youngest darts world champion in history, has applied to the Intellectual Property Office to trademark his face. The move is intended to prevent his face being reproduced, including by generative AI, without permission. Littler has won two World Championship titles in a row and has had his image used legally on darts merchandise, as well as by multiple brands such as KP Nuts. The 19-year-old joins celebrities such as actor Matthew McConaughey who have filed to protect their likeness from AI misuse in recent months. Littler has already trademarked his nickname the Nuke in the United States.

A deluge of sexual images created by Musk's Grok AI tool has prompted a public and political outcry. A deluge of sexual images created by Musk's Grok AI tool has prompted a public and political outcry. Mon 12 Jan 2026 07.23 ESTFirst published on Mon 12 Jan 2026 06.02 EST The UK media watchdog has opened a formal investigation into Elon Musk's X over the use of the Grok AI tool to manipulate images of women and children by removing their clothes. Ofcom has acted following a public and political outcry over a deluge of sexual images appearing on the platform, created by Musk's Grok, which is integrated with X. The regulator is investigating X under the Online Safety Act (OSA), which carries a range of possible punishments for breaches, including a UK ban of apps and websites for the most serious abuses.

Malaysia and Indonesia block Musk's Grok over sexually explicit deepfakes Malaysia and Indonesia have blocked access to Elon Musk's artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok over its ability to produce sexually explicit deepfakes. Grok, a tool on Musk's X platform, allows users to generate images. In recent weeks however, it has been used to edit images of real people to show them in revealing outfits. The South East Asian countries said Grok could be used to produce pornographic and non-consensual images involving women and children. They are the first in the world to ban the AI tool.

Musk says X outcry is'excuse for censorship' Elon Musk has said that critics of his social media site X are looking for any excuse for censorship, amid reports that X's artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok was creating non-consensual sexualised images of people, including children. Ofcom says it is conducting an urgent assessment of X in response, which has been backed by Technology Secretary Liz Kendall. She described the sexual manipulation of images of women and children as despicable and abhorrent, adding that she would expect to see an update from Ofcom in days. X has now limited the use of AI image function to those who pay a monthly fee, a change dubbed by Downing Street as insulting to victims of sexual violence. The BBC has seen several examples of the free AI tool undressing women and putting them in sexual situations without their consent.

Elon Musk's Grok AI image editing limited to paid X users after deepfakes Elon Musk's platform X has limited image editing with its AI tool Grok to paying users, after it came under fire for allowing people to make sexualised deepfakes. There has been a significant backlash after the chatbot honoured requests from users to digitally alter images of other people by undressing them without their consent. But Grok is now telling people asking it to make such material that only paid subscribers would be able to do so - meaning their name and payment information must be on file. The BBC has approached X for comment. Those who do not subscribe can still use Grok to edit images on its separate app and website.

Scarlett Johannson has gone to war with OpenAI, and in the battle for public opinion, OpenAI is losing--badly. Last week, OpenAI released an update of its AI chatbot called ChatGPT-4o, which featured a female voice talking to its users. Many people pointed out that the voice, which sometimes seemed to veer into flirtation, was eerily similar to Scarlett Johannson's in the 2013 dystopian sci-fi film Her. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has long talked about how much the movie inspired the company's products, and even made the connection clear last week by tweeting the title of the movie. But on Monday, Johannson released a statement saying OpenAI had asked her to be the voice of the chatbot, and when she refused, they found a soundalike.

Hundreds of Google workers and their supporters gathered near the company's downtown San Francisco offices Thursday, raising signs that read "No Tech for Apartheid" and filling the air with chants of "Tech from Amazon and Google! You can't claim that you are neutral!" Similar scenes unfolded outside Google and Amazon offices in New York and Seattle, and a Google office in Durham, North Carolina. Google and Amazon employees were joined at the rallies by tech workers from other companies and Palestinian rights organizations. They all convened to protest Project Nimbus, Google and Amazon's cloud computing contract with the Israeli government.

It didn't take long for the Internal Revenue Service to respond to pressure to drop facial recognition. The agency has told Senator Ron Wyden it plans to back away from using facial recognition for verification purposes. Wyden cautioned the transition would "take time," but he saw this as evidence the Biden administration knew privacy and security weren't "mutually exclusive" concepts. The New York Times understood the shift would take place over weeks to minimize disruptions to tax filing season. We've asked ID.me, the company slated to provide facial recognition to the IRS, for comment.

According to Tech Nation, investment in Artificial Intelligence reached record levels in the UK in 2019, making it the third biggest AI investor in the world. The last few years has seen AI and machine learning become must-have technologies for businesses across numerous industries, with AI use growing by 270% over the last four years, according to Leftronic. Many companies have therefore widely publicised the fact that they are investing in this area. However, 2020 may see the focus on the tech world shift away from AI, with the BBC reporting that the hype surrounding the technology could be dying down, approaching an "AI winter". Computer scientist Yoshua Bengio told the BBC that AI's capabilities had been "somewhat overhyped" over the last ten years, and Gary Marcus, a researcher at New York University, said that "real innovation" was needed for the technology to progress further.

After outcry from consumers and privacy advocates, Google announced Monday that it is making changes to its practice of transcribing audio from Google Assistant devices. According to the search giant, it is asking Google Home users to re-affirm their participation in the service's Voice & Audio Activity setting. But Google says it's also making it more clear that participating entails the possibility of other people listening to audio clips of Google Assistant interactions. Alongside other tech companies, Google is responding to increased backlash against its data sharing and privacy practices. Google's change in policy is just the latest example of how customers' concerns are being taken more seriously in light of the growing tension.