That’s what I’m talking about.
Texas House Democrats on Monday dared Attorney General Ken Paxton to take on Elon Musk.
Led by Rep. Mihaela Plesa of Dallas, more than 40 Democrats demanded an inquiry into allegations that Musk’s social media platform X has been used to churn out explicit, sexualized images without consent.
[…]
Plesa said she became concerned with Grok, Musk’s chatbot tool, after encountering a sexualized image of Renee Nicole Good, the Minnesota woman fatally shot by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent last week.
“I was horrified when I saw what I saw on X, and I’m sure that parents are horrified to see this, too,” she said.
[…]
“We are asking the attorney general to focus on our kids, on women in the state who have experienced this and have become victims of this,” she said. “We are asking for clear pathways as to if you are a victim, how to resolve this, how to get legal action, how to get these images removed from the internet.”
Plesa, a two-term Democrat who represents a Collin County district that includes part of far North Dallas and Plano, said she encountered images while scrolling on X, began researching and found numerous Grok-created sexualized images.
Her call for an investigation adds Texas lawmakers to a growing set of officials across in the U.S. and beyond seeking government scrutiny of X. Several Democratic U.S. senators have called for a review of Grok, and the European Union ordered X to retain documents related to the AI chatbot.
Grok limited requests for AI-generated images to paid subscribers on Thursday.
Plesa said Texas lawmakers enacted tools that can hold Musk’s company accountable for the sexualized images.
Last year, the Legislature created the Texas Responsible Artificial Intelligence Governance Act, making it illegal to create an AI tool solely for the creation of child pornography and deep fake videos. The law took effect on Jan. 1.
Paxton “has the authority to ask X to shut down until we figure out what’s going on,” Plesa said.
See here for the background. My only quibble is that every single Dem in both chambers should have signed on to this; I expect that timing and not everyone being easily available played a role in the smaller number. Hopefully the rest will join in. If there was a letter sent to Paxton I didn’t find it out there – having one that can be linked to would be helpful, Rep. Plesa. And everyone else, please keep talking about this. This is a layup. More like this, please.
UPDATE: Texas Public Radio has more, and there is a letter, which can be seen here. Well done.
UPDATE: And here’s the Chron story.