The Dark Side of Grok and a New Wave of A.I. Harassment | EP 173

Users of X are asking the platform’s built-in A.I. chatbot, Grok, to remove clothing from images of celebrities and everyday people. We talk with the New York Times reporter Kate Conger about how some of the targets of this sexual harassment, including children and their families, are responding, and whether anyone will take action to stop it. Then, we recap a holiday break spent experimenting with Claude Code. We unveil what we built, how we did it and why the tool’s dramatic improvement could be scary for society. And finally, Casey debunks a viral Reddit post that accuses the food delivery industry of shocking exploitation. We explain how a scammer tried to fool us all using AI-generated evidence.

For more on this episode, go to https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/09/po...

Guest:
Kate Conger, New York Times reporter covering X

Additional Reading
Grok Is Undressing Children — Can the Law Stop It?
https://www.theverge.com/ai-artificia...

Debunking the A.I. Food Delivery Hoax That Fooled Reddit
https://www.platformer.news/fake-uber...

Chapters:
00:00:00 - This week on the show
00:00:30 - The problem with Grok
00:08:23 - Interview with NYT reporter Kate Conger
00:27:05 - Unveiling our Claude Code experiments
00:53:16 - How Casey debunked a viral Reddit hoax

Hard Fork is a weekly look into the future that's already here. Hosts Kevin Roose and Casey Newton explore stories from the bleeding edge of tech.

Casey’s publication, Platformer: https://www.platformer.news/

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Credits
“Hard Fork” is hosted by Kevin Roose and Casey Newton and produced by Whitney Jones and Rachel Cohn. This episode was edited by Vjeran Pavic. Engineering by Katie McMurran and original music by Dan Powell, Marion Lozano and Diane Wong. Fact-checking by Caitlin Love. Our executive producer is Jen Poyant. Video production by Chris Schodt and Sawyer Roque. Video QC by Isabella Anderson. Podcast Art Direction by Benjamin Wilkerson Tousley. Podcast Art & Animations by Julian Hespenheide. Additional Motion graphics by Phil Robibero. Thumbnails by Julia Moburg and Elizabeth Bristow. Special thanks to Paula Szuchman, Pui-Wing Tam and Dahlia Haddad.