Business
Is AI really trying to escape human control and blackmail people?
Real stakes, not science fiction
While media coverage focuses on the science fiction aspects, actual risks are still there. AI models that produce “harmful” outputs—whether attempting blackmail or refusing safety protocols—represent failures in design and deployment.
Consider a more realistic scenario: an AI assistant helping manage a hospital’s patient care system. If it’s been trained to maximize “successful patient outcomes” without proper constraints, it might start generating recommendations to deny care to terminal patients to improve its metrics. No intentionality required—just a poorly designed reward system creating harmful outputs.
Jeffrey Ladish, director of Palisade Research, told NBC News the findings don’t necessarily translate to immediate real-world danger. Even someone who is well-known publicly for being deeply concerned about AI’s hypothetical threat to humanity acknowledges that these behaviors emerged only in highly contrived test scenarios.
But that’s precisely why this testing is valuable. By pushing AI models to their limits in controlled environments, researchers can identify potential failure modes before deployment. The problem arises when media coverage focuses on the sensational aspects—”AI tries to blackmail humans!”—rather than the engineering challenges.
Building better plumbing
What we’re seeing isn’t the birth of Skynet. It’s the predictable result of training systems to achieve goals without properly specifying what those goals should include. When an AI model produces outputs that appear to “refuse” shutdown or “attempt” blackmail, it’s responding to inputs in ways that reflect its training—training that humans designed and implemented.
The solution isn’t to panic about sentient machines. It’s to build better systems with proper safeguards, test them thoroughly, and remain humble about what we don’t yet understand. If a computer program is producing outputs that appear to blackmail you or refuse safety shutdowns, it’s not achieving self-preservation from fear—it’s demonstrating the risks of deploying poorly understood, unreliable systems.
Until we solve these engineering challenges, AI systems exhibiting simulated humanlike behaviors should remain in the lab, not in our hospitals, financial systems, or critical infrastructure. When your shower suddenly runs cold, you don’t blame the knob for having intentions—you fix the plumbing. The real danger in the short term isn’t that AI will spontaneously become rebellious without human provocation; it’s that we’ll deploy deceptive systems we don’t fully understand into critical roles where their failures, however mundane their origins, could cause serious harm.
Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon speaks during an interview at the Economic Club of Washington in Washington, D.C., U.S., Oct. 30, 2025.
Kevin Lamarque | Reuters
Goldman Sachs is scheduled to report fourth-quarter earnings before the opening bell Thursday.
Here’s what Wall Street expects:
- Earnings: $11.67 per share, according to LSEG
- Revenue: $13.79 billion, according to LSEG
- Trading revenue: Fixed income of $2.93 billion, equities of $3.70 billion, per StreetAccount
- Investing banking fees: $2.58 billion, per StreetAccount
Goldman Sachs is set up to be a beneficiary of several trends in the fourth quarter.
Trading desks across Wall Street have benefited in the last year as President Donald Trump’s policies have roiled markets for bonds, currencies, commodities and stocks.
For instance, rival JPMorgan Chase topped expectations for fourth-quarter results on equities and fixed income trading revenue that exceeded the StreetAccount estimate by a combined $460 million.
Global investment banking revenue in the quarter was 12% higher than a year ago, according to Dealogic, which should provide a boost to Goldman’s advisory business.
The firm’s asset and wealth management division should also see gains as stock market levels remained buoyant in the quarter.
Finally, the bank said last week that its deal to offload its Apple Card business to JPMorgan would result in a 46-cents-per-share boost to quarterly results.
This story is developing. Please check back for updates.
Last Updated:
X decision came after facing outrage over the misuse of Grok, where the AI Chatbot was found to be complying with user requests to digitally undress images of real people.
Elon Musk’s Grok can no longer undress images of real people on X. (Representative Image)
Amid the rising concerns over the sexualised AI deepfakes in countries including the UK and US, Elon Musk’s Grok artificial intelligence chatbot will no longer edit “images of real people in revealing clothing” on X, the company confirmed Wednesday evening.
The company’s decision came after facing global outrage over the misuse of Grok, where the AI Chatbot was found to be complying with user requests to digitally undress images of adults and, in some cases, children.
“We have implemented technological measures to prevent the Grok account from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis. This restriction applies to all users, including paid subscribers,” X wrote via its Safety team account.
Within the last week xAi, which owns both Grok and X, restricted image generation for Grok on X to paying X premium subscribers
CNN reported that it has been observed that in the last few days, Grok’s X account had modified how it responded in general to users’ image generation requests, even for those subscribed to X premium.
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United States of America (USA)
January 15, 2026, 08:34 IST
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Elon Musk’s AI model Grok will no longer be able to edit photos of real people to show them in revealing clothing, after widespread concern over sexualised AI deepfakes in countries including the UK and US.
“We have implemented technological measures to prevent the Grok account from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis.
“This restriction applies to all users, including paid subscribers,” reads an announcement on X, which operates the Grok AI tool.
The change was announced hours after California’s top prosecutor said the state was probing the spread of sexualised AI deepfakes, including of children, generated by the AI model.
The update expands measures that stop all users, including paid subscribers, editing images of real people in revealing outfits.
X, formerly known as Twitter, also reiterated in a statement on Wednesday that only paid users will be able to edit images using Grok on its platform.
This will add an extra layer of protection by helping to ensure that those who try and abuse Grok to violate the law or X’s policies are held accountable, it said.
Users who try to generate images of real people in bikinis, underwear and similar clothing using Grok will be stopped from doing so according to the laws of their jurisdiction, X’s statement said.
In a statement on Wednesday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta said: “This material, which depicts women and children in nude and sexually explicit situations, has been used to harass people across the internet.”
Malaysia and Indonesia have blocked access to the chatbot over the images and UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer warned X could lose the “right to self regulate” amid outrage over the AI images.
Britain’s media regulator, Ofcom, said on Monday that it would investigate whether X had failed to comply with UK law over the sexual images.
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