Raising a huge effigy of Elon Musk over Times Square to protest Grok

In the middle From Times Square in New York City, a huge inflatable doll of a billionaire Elon Musk Towering over tourists and commuters earlier today. It was surrounded by black banners with phrases claiming “Grok makes AI pornography for children” and “SpaceX owns Grok,” a reference to the Musk-owned company. Artificial intelligence chatbot for whom Image generation tool It was used to create a flood of sexualized images Minors Earlier this year. Masked attendees stood nearby, distributing flyers containing additional information, but refused to speak to the media.

The demonstration was moderated by Safe AI Now (SAIN), which describes itself as a “coalition of faith leaders, family advocates, child development experts, online safety organizations, educators, legal and technology professionals, and concerned citizens,” ahead of SpaceX’s initial public offering on Friday. The location was chosen strategically – directly in front of the Nasdaq Stock Exchange and the offices of JPMorgan, a bank. Participation in the public offering.

SpaceX is currently valued at $1.77 trillionThis makes it the largest company to debut on the stock market, with a starting price of $135 per share. Although the public is able to buy shares in the company, Musk will retain a majority of the voting power, giving him the ability to make decisions for the company almost unilaterally. An IPO could make it too The world’s first trillionaire.

But a SAIN representative, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from Musk, told WIRED that this structure represents a real threat to the company and is not being taken seriously by investors and banks backing the IPO.

“This IPO is a shift in responsibility,” they say. “Elon is responsible for all of this. It’s all the decisions he made. All the litigation expenses, the regulatory fines, the investigations, all of that is basically passed on to shareholders.”

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In February, Musk announced this SpaceX was buying xAIthe artificial intelligence company founded by Musk and developer Grok. The announcement came at a time when xAI was facing scrutiny both in the United States and abroad over the chatbot’s ability to create nude images of women and children. In January, the European Commission announced that it would do so Investigate the company “To evaluate whether the company properly assessed and mitigated risks” to prevent the creation of non-consensual sexual images. In March, three girls filed a lawsuit Class action lawsuit against xAI because its technology was allegedly used to create nude images of them, and in January, 35 state prosecutors I fell Open letter to the company, demanding that it take action to remove non-consensual sexual images and put in place guardrails to prevent the tool from doing so in the future. Ashley St. Clair, mother of one of Musk’s children, She also filed suit against xAI for allegedly creating sexually explicit images of her.

Today, WIRED reported that Grok is Hosting sexually explicit and non-consensual images of womenAmong them are American actress Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and celebrities.

In February Share on Xwhich Musk also owns, wrote that “Grock must win or we will be ruled by an intolerably woke and hypocritical AI.”

“It’s really easy to get distracted by IPO news. And I think that’s kind of what they’re hoping will happen,” the SAIN representative says. “But there’s real harm, real danger. I think if we normalize the situation everywhere — from the banks that underwrite it to the Nasdaq that lists it to the shareholders that buy into it — a company that has this really toxic platform in its puppy, and normalizes that kind of explicit image, there’s going to be a real problem.”