On July 14, xAI, the maker of the popular U.S. chatbot Grok, sued a South Carolina man in federal court in Texas. xAI alleges he used false identities and repeatedly reworked prompts to make sexually explicit images of real adults and children.
Usually, legal claims over AI-generated sexual images run in the other direction: the people depicted sue the company whose tool produced them. This is one of the first cases brought by an AI company against one of its users. The man, Terry Wayne Harwood, separately faces eight felony charges in South Carolina involving alleged possession and distribution of child sexual-abuse material; the state did not mention AI, but xAI says at least some images at issue in that case were generated or altered through Grok.
Document note Obtained from PACER. Defendant’s residential address redacted by Plain Thinking. No other changes were made.
The United States has created a special list of organizations in the UAE that can receive advanced AI chips without applying for a separate license each time. Although Commerce has approved individual foreign companies through other programs, this rule creates an unusually broad, UAE-specific fast lane that includes the Emirati government, two major UAE technology companies—G42 and Core42—and several American firms operating there.
The U.S. administration says Russian Intelligence is targeting state and local government networks through poorly secured routers. (CISA)
A Los Angeles police oversight report warns about outdated vehicle hot-list data causing unnecessary enforcement actions. (Los Angeles Police Commission)
North Carolina’s latest budget creates a durable path for statewide surveillance infrastructure on state transportation property. (Government Technology)
A Connecticut city’s public webpage for reports and call logs has been down since February after an unspecified cyberattack. (CT Insider)
Police tech vendors are combining 911, camera, plate-reader, records, body-camera, and other data in unified systems. (The Verge)
Driver-facing cameras built to monitor commercial truckers are starting to show in normal loaners. (Gadget Review)
Cleveland put new legal and reporting requirements around continued use of ALPRs. (Ideastream Public Media)
Researchers are finding limits in a popular shortcut used to trace Bitcoin transactions. (arXiv)
San Francisco police say a link that gave public access to live drone footage was meant for internal use. (ABC7 San Francisco)
Korea filed its first criminal charge over using smart glasses to cheat a technical exam. (The Korea Herald)
