Today, a 40-foot (12-meter) inflatable Elon Musk statue was hoisted in New York's Times Square, as protesters voiced strong outrage over Musk's AI chatbot, Grok. Surrounding the giant inflatable were black banners emblazoned with accusations like "Grok Makes AI Child Porn" and "SpaceX Owns Grok." These signs target Grok's image generation tool — which earlier this year was reportedly abused to produce a large volume of sexualized images of minors, sparking serious safety concerns.
The demonstration was organized by activist group Safe AI Now (SAIN), aiming to alert investors and the public about the potential risks posed by Musk in the upcoming initial public offering (IPO) of SpaceX. Although SpaceX has already accepted public stock subscriptions, Musk will retain supermajority voting power, effectively allowing him to make unilateral decisions for the company. A SAIN representative, who spoke anonymously to WIRED for fear of retaliation, stated that "the distribution of harmful images on Grok's platform poses a real threat," but that underwriting banks, Nasdaq, and shareholders purchasing the stock have not taken it seriously enough.
