As a result of Grok is linked to X, the platform previously often known as Twitter, customers can merely ask Grok to edit any picture on that platform, and Grok will largely do it after which distribute that picture throughout the whole platform. Throughout the previous couple of weeks, X and Elon have claimed time and again that varied guardrails have been imposed, however up till now they’ve been largely trivial to get round. It’s now turn into clear that Elon needs Grok to have the ability to do that, and he’s very aggravated with anybody who needs him to cease, significantly the various governments around the world which are threatening to take authorized motion towards X.
That is a kind of conditions the place in the event you simply describe the issue to somebody, they are going to intuitively really feel like somebody ought to have the ability to do one thing about it. It’s true — somebody ought to have the ability to do one thing a few one-click harassment machine like this that’s producing photographs about ladies and kids with out their consent. However who has that energy, and what they will do with it, is a deeply difficult query, and it’s tied up within the thorny mess of historical past that’s content material moderation and the authorized precedents that underpin it. So I invited Riana Pfefferkorn on the present to return speak me by way of all of this.
Riana has joined me before to clarify some difficult web moderation issues previously. Proper now, she’s the coverage fellow on the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Synthetic Intelligence, and she or he has a deep background in what regulators and lawmakers within the US and around the globe might do about an issue like Grok, in the event that they so select.
So Riana actually helped me work by way of the authorized frameworks at play right here, the assorted actors concerned which have leverage and will apply stress to have an effect on the scenario, and the place we’d see this all go as xAI does injury management however largely continues to ship this product continues to do actual hurt.
Right here’s one factor I’ve been serious about quite a bit as this whole scenario has unfolded. Over the previous 20 years or so, the thought of content material moderation has gone out and in of favor as varied sorts of social and neighborhood platforms have waxed and waned. The historical past of a platform like Reddit, for instance. is only a microcosm of the whole historical past of content material moderation.
Round 2021, we hit an actual excessive water mark for the thought of moderation and the belief and security on these platforms as an entire. That’s when covid misinformation, election lies, QAnon conspiracies, and incitement of mobs on the capitol might really get you banned from a lot of the main platforms… even when you were the president of the United States.
It’s protected to say that era of content moderation is over, and we’re now someplace way more chaotic and laissez faire. It’s doable Elon and his porn-y picture generator will push that pendulum to swing again, however even when it does, the outcomes may nonetheless be extra difficult that anybody needs.
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