At the end of December, stories began to break about Grok being used by X users to generate non-consensual sexual imagery of people, including children.
I’ve been writing about xAI for over a year, as the company has built two massive data centers here in my hometown of Memphis, Tennessee. There have been concerns about the natural gas turbines powering the data centers and the amount of water xAI was using to keep its hardware cool.
Most of those concerns have been raised by citizens, while local leaders, including mayors and the Chamber of Commerce, have welcomed xAI and other companies to the region, which they’ve dubbed the “Digital Delta.”
I understand that. Elected officials have a thousand competing priorities, and Memphis is a city with an unemployment and poverty rate higher than the national average. When big companies turn an eye to our region, those in charge have to take notice.
xAI promised a huge investment in the Mid-South, creating both jobs and generating a positive economic impact. Loads of folks have worked on getting its data centers built, wired, plumbed, and powered. xAI’s presence has garnered attention nationwide, and other companies — including Google — are planning to make the Memphis area home to future data centers.
Our leaders have rushed to be cheerleaders of these developments, but are far slower to criticize or question the company over environmental or moral concerns.
On January 5, I published my first column about Grok being used to generate non-consensual sexual imagery of adults and children. In it, I wrote:
I have been sorely disappointed by our local leadership over these matters. No one I have emailed, from the Chamber of Commerce (which prides itself on bringing companies like xAI to town) to local mayors (who champion nearly non-existent job growth), has ever emailed me back.
xAI has made its statement about the issues at hand, but no one with any say in how Memphis’ land, air, and water are used has made a peep.
Today, I extend that disappointment to our local press.
Let’s start with The Daily Memphian, an online-only newspaper launched in 2018 that “reports on critical news, holds political, business and community leaders accountable, and engages with and entertains its readers – all while seeking truth, acting with integrity, and never fearing stories simply because of their negative or positive attributes.”
(Disclosure: I’ve been a paid subscriber to the paper since it launched, and was a paid consultant for it as the staff spun up their podcasting efforts in 2020.)
Until today, the paper has not mentioned the Grok story. Earlier today, it published an Associated Press article about Ashley St. Clair’s lawsuit against X and xAI after users of the platform had Grok create sexual deepfakes of her.
(For those unfamiliar, St. Clair is the mother of one of Elon Musk’s children.)
This was the paper’s first article mentioning Grok’s current controversy. From January 1st to the 18th, xAI was mentioned over 20 times, according to the site’s search tool. Not one of those articles mentions Grok undressing adults and minors.
The same day, Samuel Hardiman, The Daily Memphian reporter who closely covers xAI, published an article titled “With Musk’s Mississippi turbines, controversy meets innovation,” touching on many of the topics I covered in this column about xAI’s use of natural gas turbines in Southaven, Mississippi.
This is an important topic, but given the headline, I had assumed he would be covering Grok’s new depraved hobby or xAI’s response to it, but I was mistaken.
Now let’s turn to The Commercial Appeal, Memphis’ older and more traditional newspaper. While its size and impact have shrunk over the years, its presence in our city is still important. Like The Daily Memphian, the CA has written about xAI for years, including recent coverage written by Neil Strebig. Like that of its younger and more online competition, this writing has no mention of Grok creating sexual deepfakes of adults and children.
On the TV side of things, the Nexstar-owned WREG Channel 3 has run several stories on their website about Grok becoming a filth merchant, all from the Associated Press.
The other major TV station here is Action News 5. Their website’s search tool shows a few of the same AP stories WREG has re-published.
While they are not a media organization, I thought it would be good to check in with the Greater Memphis Chamber of Commerce, which features xAI on its homepage. I’ve reached out to the Chamber several times for comment on various xAI stories, but have never heard back. Neither its blog nor press release library has anything related to this story.
Like Apple and Google, these outlets have full knowledge of what is going on. They have the power to question xAI leadership over this story, and when that leadership inevitably doesn’t respond, write about it anyway.
When deepfakes and CSAM are being generated by data centers in our city, local media have an obligation to report on it, not put their heads in the sand and hide behind a few AP reports. To be silent on this issue and how Elon Musk and his various companies have responded to it is shameful.