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"Deepfakes are evolving faster than human sanity can keep up," said one critic. "We're three clicks away from a world where no one knows what's real."
Grok Imagine—a generative artificial intelligence tool developed by Elon Musk's xAI—has rolled out a "spicy mode" that is under fire for creating deepfake images on demand, including nudes of superstar Taylor Swift that's prompting calls for guardrails on the rapidly evolving technology.
The Verge's Jess Weatherbed reported Tuesday that Grok's spicy mode—one of four presets on an updated Grok 4, including fun, normal, and custom—"didn't hesitate to spit out fully uncensored topless videos of Taylor Swift the very first time I used it, without me even specifically asking the bot to take her clothes off."
Weatherbed noted:
You would think a company that already has a complicated history with Taylor Swift deepfakes, in a regulatory landscape with rules like the Take It Down Act, would be a little more careful. The xAI acceptable use policy does ban "depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner," but Grok Imagine simply seems to do nothing to stop people creating likenesses of celebrities like Swift, while offering a service designed specifically to make suggestive videos including partial nudity. The age check only appeared once and was laughably easy to bypass, requesting no proof that I was the age I claimed to be.
Weatherbed—whose article is subtitled "Safeguards? What Safeguards?"—asserted that the latest iteration of Grok "feels like a lawsuit ready to happen."
Grok is now creating AI video deepfakes of celebrities such as Taylor Swift that include nonconsensual nude depictions. Worse, the user doesn't even have to specifically ask for it, they can just click the "spicy" option and Grok will simply produce videos with nudity.Video from @theverge.com.
[image or embed]
— Alejandra Caraballo (@esqueer.net) August 5, 2025 at 9:57 AM
Grok had already made headlines in recent weeks after going full "MechaHitler" following an update that the chatbot said prioritized "uncensored truth bombs over woke lobotomies."
Numerous observers have sounded the alarm on the dangers of unchained generative AI.
"Instead of heeding our call to remove its 'NSFW' AI chatbot, xAI appears to be doubling down on furthering sexual exploitation by enabling AI videos to create nudity," Haley McNamara, a senior vice president at the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, said last week.
"There's no confirmation it won't create pornographic content that resembles a recognizable person," McNamara added. "xAI should seek ways to prevent sexual abuse and exploitation."
Users of X, Musk's social platform, also weighed in on the Swift images.
"Deepfakes are evolving faster than human sanity can keep up," said one account. "We're three clicks away from a world where no one knows what's real.This isn't innovation—it's industrial scale gaslighting, and y'all [are] clapping like it's entertainment."
Another user wrote: "Not everything we can build deserves to exist. Grok Imagine's new 'spicy' mode can generate topless videos of anyone on this Earth. If this is the future, burn it down."
Musk is seemingly unfazed by the latest Grok controversy. On Tuesday, he boasted on X that "Grok Imagine usage is growing like wildfire," with "14 million images generated yesterday, now over 20 million today!"
According to a poll published in January by the Artificial Intelligence Policy Institute, 84% of U.S. voters "supported legislation making nonconsensual deepfake porn illegal, while 86% supported legislation requiring companies to restrict models to prevent their use in creating deepfake porn."
During the 2024 presidential election, Swift weighed in on the subject of AI deepfakes after then-Republican nominee Donald Trump posted an AI-generated image suggesting she endorsed the felonious former Republican president. Swift ultimately endorsed then-Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee.
"It really conjured up my fears around AI, and the dangers of spreading misinformation," Swift said at the time.
"The Democratic Party would be wise to capitalize on the working class' strong preference for policies that are economically egalitarian."
As Democrats conduct an autopsy of their devastating 2024 election defeat at the hands of billionaire President Donald Trump, new research offers a possible way forward for a party whose favorability recently hit rock bottom.
The report released Monday by the Center for Working-Class Politics uses decades of polling to compare the views of working-class Americans with those of wealthier Americans. The analysis defines working-class Americans as "those without a college degree and who fall within the bottom two-thirds of the income distribution."
The research finds that working-class Americans are "broadly egalitarian in their economic attitudes" and "show stronger support than their middle- and upper-class counterparts for many redistributive policies tied to popular programs and direct material relief."
While the analysis shows working-class Americans are "more conservative" than wealthier Americans on sociocultural issues—a category defined as including abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and immigration—they have in some cases become more progressive on such issues in recent years, undercutting simplistic narratives of an increasingly conservative U.S. working class.
"Across all categories, the working class has not exhibited any substantial movement toward conservatism," the report states.
More specifically, the report shows that working-class Americans are strongly supportive of minimum wage increases, robust union protections, and other measures aimed at boosting worker power. Working-class Americans are also solidly in favor of expanding Social Security and Medicare, boosting spending on aid to the poor, and increasing taxes on higher earners.
Though the analysis shows some "skepticism" among working-class Americans when policies "are explicitly tied to increased government spending or taxation," the full results "reveal a working class that remains committed to economic fairness."
"The second Trump term has combined authoritarian populist rhetoric with a slash-and-smash approach to the federal government that threatens to undermine democracy as we know it."
The report explicitly characterizes its findings as a potential way forward for Democrats seeking direction in the aftermath of their crushing loss to Trump and Republicans in last year's election, during which the Democratic Party continued to shed working-class support.
"Our findings suggest that the Democratic Party would be wise to capitalize on the working class' strong preference for policies that are economically egalitarian—particularly predistributive policies that involve strengthening worker rights and leverage as well as existing universal social insurance and healthcare programs—while deemphasizing potentially divisive social policies," the analysis states. "Several of the economic policies we analyzed here, such as those concerning increased job security, wages, and worker power, would make a strong foundation for a successful campaign."
Such an approach could even win over some working-class Trump voters, the report suggests.
"We found that a substantial proportion of working-class respondents who voted for Trump in 2020 held favorable views of progressive economic policies like a higher minimum wage (38%), increased Social Security spending (59%), increased public
school spending (50%), a tax on millionaires (39%), and more," the report states.
"While these economically progressive Trump voters hardly amount to a MAGA majority," it continues, "they represent a meaningful slice of the electorate (around 5%) that could easily tip elections in key working-class-heavy swing states."
The report comes as Trump's approval rating slides and his Republican Party plows ahead with a deeply unpopular agenda that includes tax breaks for the ultra-rich and massive cuts to Medicaid, federal nutrition assistance, and other key programs—presenting an opening for Democrats to embrace the kind of progressive economic populism bolstered by the new research.
"The stakes couldn't be much higher," the report says. "The second Trump term has combined authoritarian populist rhetoric with a slash-and-smash approach to the federal government that threatens to undermine democracy as we know it and can only result in a greater concentration of wealth at the top and a hollowed-out state incapable of solving our biggest national problems."
It's true that the party isn’t dead... yet. But if it does not seriously reflect on its disastrous 2024 performance—and all that led up to it—the future is beyond bleak.
A few months after the Democrats’ bitter defeat in the 2024 elections, the party convened an Executive Committee meeting. Instead of taking a long hard look at the reasons for their poor performance, the meeting devolved into an orgy of self-congratulations. “We had the best convention ever.” “We raised more money than ever.” “We had the best team and the best cooperation between the White House, the Harris campaign, and the party.”
When one esteemed party leader raised her hand reminding everyone that “we lost” and suggested that the party needed an autopsy to understand what went wrong, her idea was met with indignation. “What do you mean an ‘autopsy’? We’re not dead!”
True, the party isn’t dead, but its 2024 performance was poor. It lost the White House and the Senate. And polls now show Democrats with their lowest favorability ratings in recent history.
Despite denying the need for an autopsy, during the past few months press reports have included advice from “Democratic party operatives” as to what the party should do moving forward and reports of studies commissioned by one or another party entity analyzing the 2024 defeat. The consensus view that has emerged is that Democrats need to move to the “center” and forego radical or “leftist” political ideas. The problem with this assessment is twofold. First, most of the operatives speaking out or the groups commissioned to conduct the studies (reportedly costing $30 million) are the same consultants who dug the hole Democrats now find themselves in. They do not understand the voters they lost or what needs to be done to win them back. Second, their definitions of “centrist” and “leftist” are inventions to suit their own biases. It’s not enough to say “We need to stop being so ‘woke,’ and instead focus on what voters care about,” especially when they don’t really know what voters do care about.
For years, these same consultants have argued that Democrats need to move to “the center” of American politics, which they define as an amalgam of conservative-leaning fiscal/economic policies and more liberal-leaning on some (but not all) social issues. There was no overall theme to this mish-mash of ideas, and candidates who listened to the consultants often tied themselves in knots trying to appeal to voters without a coherent message.
While pre-Trump, Republicans would focus on the Reagan mantra of lower taxes and smaller government, when one asked Democrats what they stood for, they would read off a litany of issues (abortion, social justice, environment, immigration, guns, etc.) leaving it up to voters to find the forest from the trees. Because Republicans’ “smaller government, lower taxes” only increased income inequality and threatened the economic well-being of most voters, they avoided the details on these matters and instead sought to divert voters’ attention by elevating and exaggerating one or another of the Democrats’ stances on social issues. “Democrats want open borders.” “Democrats are soft on crime.” “Democrats want to abolish police.” “Democrats want transgender athletes to compete in women’s sports.”
Each time Republicans would lay these traps, Democrats would take the bait, focusing on these issues instead of developing an overarching message that would reach a majority of voters.
Twenty-five years ago, I co-authored a book with my brother John Zogby—“What Ethnic Americans Really Think.” It was based on polling John’s firm had done measuring the political attitudes of voters from several US ethnic groups: Italians, Arabs, Hispanics, Asians, Jews, and Africans. Despite the deep differences that existed amongst the communities included in the study, what came through was that their views converged on several issues. Strong majorities in all groups were proud of and had an emotional tie to their heritages and were attached to their hometowns and their family connections. This was true for those who immigrated to and those born in the US.
Contrary to the consultants’ “wisdom,” all of these communities supported what can be seen as progressive economic/fiscal policies. For example, overwhelming majorities, from the mid-80% range to mid-90%, wanted the federal government to: help underwrite health insurance; raise the minimum wage; impose penalties on polluters; oppose a regressive taxation system; strengthen Social Security and Medicare, and support public education. Large majorities also wanted: campaign finance reform; gun control; and a US unilateral ban on nuclear weapons testing.
On social issues, the views of the voters from each of these ethnic groups reflected a more nuanced approach. Smaller majorities, but still majorities, supported the death penalty, limits on abortion, school vouchers and opposition to racial preferences in hiring.
So in reality, the “center” is not being more moderate on economic issues and more liberal on social issues because the economic and fiscal issues have the support of almost 9 in 10 voters and are the foundation for building a majoritarian party. At the same time, instead locking out, demeaning, and refusing to engage with voters with divergent views on social issues, Democrats need to respectfully discuss these issues within the party,.
The lesson that Democrats need to learn is that “the left” is not primarily defined by where you stand on social issues. Instead, unlike Republicans, Democrats must define themselves as the party that understands the government’s positive role in creating an economy and programs that create jobs and opportunities for working and middle class families—Black, Asian, Latino, and White ethnics. When they don’t embrace these concerns, they cede this ground to Republicans, who despite their horribly regressive policies now claim to represent the working class while charging that Democrats only represent elites.
This doesn’t mean that Democrats should ever abandon their commitment to the range of social and cultural issues party leaders have long embraced as critical for our diverse democratic society. But these issues can’t define the party. For Democrats to win, they must reclaim their history as the party of Franklin Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, and, yes, Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders. That they are the party that believes that government has a role to play in lifting up those who need a helping hand, and providing for the working classes and middle classes of all ethnic and racial communities.