Grok enabled online image abuse (and X doesn't care), libraries are booming but underfunded and Trump renaming the Kennedy Center has been met with boycotts, lawsuits and parody.
Welcome to the first WTF now?! round-up for 2026 – the first one in a long time and the first one on my new website. The X bin fire keeps on burning, this time because of a Grok image editing tool used to digitally derobe people in photos. Public outrage, media reporting and regulatory scrutiny hasn't seemed to encourge xAI to take responsibility though.
The latest move in Trump's hostile takeover of the Kennedy Centre has seen the esteemed institution renamed The Trump Kennedy Centre. Despite being in poor taste, the groundwork was put in place to make the change months ago – a pity no one at the time thought to buy the trumpkennedycentre.org domain though!
Less concerning is the resurgence of Australian libraries which have seen strong post-COVID visitation recovery. But there are concerns that funding and relevance may be putting pressure on these important players in the community.
Also: LEGO play goes digital and AI overviews called out for bad medical advice.
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What's been going on?
Here's WTF happened this week:
Image editing Grok feature quickly became a tool for removing people’s clothing
A new Grok image feature allowed users to derobe photos of people with alarming ease. Despite public outcry, media coverage and regulator probes, xAI has largely been dismissive, asking users to stop it rather than implementing AI safeguards.
In further proof that X is a bin fire, a new image editing tool is being used to generate non-consensual image abuse. Just before Christmas, X (formerly Twitter) added an ‘Edit image’ feature that lets users use AI to make changes to images they have uploaded or that other users have uploaded to the platform. Of course, some users took advantage of the new feature to partially or fully derobe photos of people. How anyone thought that such a tool would be used for only innocuous purposes is frankly bewildering?!
