Investors are feeling less hot about the makers of cooling systems for data centers after the CEO of Nvidia Corp. stoked concerns that demand for their products could dry up.
Shares of Modine Manufacturing Co. led declines in this sector, tumbling as much as 21% Tuesday before recovering some of those losses to close about 7.5% lower. Other makers of water-cooled systems and similar productsincluding Johnson Controls International PLC, Trane Technologies PLC, and Carrier Global Corp.also fell as much as 6.2% on Tuesday.
To blame? The next generation of Nvidias computer chips, announced on Monday, which won’t require the same type of cooling systems. Thats because the new Rubin platform will feature extreme codesign that integrates chips, trays, racks, and more, Jensen Huang, the chipmakers CEO, said during a keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas on Monday.
100% liquid-cooled system
Describing the 100% liquid-cooled system thats now in production as a breakthrough, Huangs brief remarks in a hourlong-plus presentation managed to rattle investors, as chillers have previously been a crucial component in data centers.
The comments create some questions/concerns about the longer-term positioning of chillers within data centers over time, particularly as liquid cooling becomes more prominent, Baird analyst Timothy Wojs wrote in a note to clients, as Bloomberg reported. Liquid cooling allows systems to operate at higher temperatures, Wojs added.
More fallout from CES
And makers of cooling systems werent the only victim of Huangs CES comments: Shares of Amphenol, which makes cables, sensors, and other connectors for data centers, fell as much as 6.6% on Tuesday before ending the day 1.1% higher amid worries that its products would no longer be needed, as Barrons reported.
While Huangs comments caused turmoil in other parts of the stock market, Nvidia stock also fell even as the S&P 500 notched a new record high on Tuesday. The stock closed nearly 0.5% lower.
Nvidias Jensen Huang is one of the tech industrys longest-serving chief executives, leading the chipmaker since cofounding it in 1993. Now hes the recipient of a long-standing technology award: the IEEE Medal of Honor, established by a predecessor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 1917.
Huang was named the recipient of the medal (and an accompanying $2 million prize) at the Consumer Electronics Show on January 6 in recognition of his lifetime of work in accelerating computingthe technique of using specialized chips like Nvidias graphics processing units to speed specialized operations such as rendering images for video games, crunching numbers for scientific research, or, critically for the industry today, powering artificial intelligence.
Nvidia reached an unprecedented $5 trillion market valuation in October, with its chips providing much of the computing power behind todays AI.
It just is so important to have this kind of compute power at our fingertips, to be able to make advances so quickly, says Mary Ellen Randall, president and CEO of IEEE.
Nvidia released what it calls the first GPU, the GeForce 256, in 1999. At the time, the chip was principally recognized for advancing computer gaming, letting developers and artists add unprecedented levels of graphical detail without compromising speed. Under Huangs leadership, the company soon began work on CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture), a system that enables developers to harness the parallel processing capabilities of its chips for a variety of computational tasks.
That proved to be critical for recent advances in AI; Nvidias chips and development platforms today power AI technologies such as ChatGPT and other large language models, as well as autonomous vehicles and industrial robots.
Nvidias market capitalization has fallen since its October high amid questions about a possible AI bubble, including concern about Nvidias investments in AI firms that in turn purchase its chips. But the company maintains a valuation of more than $4 trillion as huge swaths of the economy seek to harness artificial intelligence software that its chips are optimized to run.
We’re in unprecedented times where AI is accelerating everything, says Randall.
Advances by Huang and his Nvidia colleagues build on the work of previous winners of the Medal of Honor, first awarded by the Institute of Radio Engineers in 1917 to Edwin Howard Armstrong, who was pivotal in developing radio-related technologies including FM broadcasting.
Other early recipients included Lee de Forest, whose work with vacuum tubes paved the way for todays transistor-powered electronics; Claude Shannon, known for his groundbreaking work tying mathematics to electronic circuitry and digital computation; and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi.
The Institute of Radio Engineers merged with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1963, forming IEEE, a nonprofit that in November announced its membership had grown to 500,000 across 190 countries. Today Medal of Honor recipients are selected by IEEEs board of directors based on consultation with a team that includes past IEEE presidents, previous award winners, and other esteemed members of the organization, Randall says.
Several recent recipients of the IEEEs top award have been innovators in computer and internet technology, including Ethernet cocreator Robert Metcalfe, recognized in 1996, and Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn, instrumental in developing the internets core TCP/IP data routing protocol, recognized in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
Other Medal of Honor winners from the chipmaking industry include former Intel CEO Andrew Grove, recognized in 2000; Intel cofounder Gordon Moore, awarded in 2008; Morris Chang, founder of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), recognized in 2011; and Broadcom cofounder Henry Samueli, last years award recipient.
Randall says Huangs work builds upon the innovations of previous Medal of Honor recipients while helping to pave the way for tomorrows technologies.
All those types of things are fundamental to how we got to today, she says. And this is certainly a very important step in the transition of technology for the future.
Nvidias Jensen Huang is one of the tech industrys longest-serving chief executives, leading the chipmaker since cofounding it in 1993. Now hes the recipient of a long-standing technology award: the IEEE Medal of Honor, established by a predecessor of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers in 1917.
Huang was named the recipient of the medal (and an accompanying $2 million prize) at the Consumer Electronics Show on January 6 in recognition of his lifetime of work in accelerating computingthe technique of using specialized chips like Nvidias graphics processing units to speed specialized operations such as rendering images for video games, crunching numbers for scientific research, or, critically for the industry today, powering artificial intelligence.
Nvidia reached an unprecedented $5 trillion market valuation in October, with its chips providing much of the computing power behind todays AI.
It just is so important to have this kind of compute power at our fingertips, to be able to make advances so quickly, says Mary Ellen Randall, president and CEO of IEEE.
Nvidia released what it calls the first GPU, the GeForce 256, in 1999. At the time, the chip was principally recognized for advancing computer gaming, letting developers and artists add unprecedented levels of graphical detail without compromising speed. Under Huangs leadership, the company soon began work on CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture), a system that enables developers to harness the parallel processing capabilities of its chips for a variety of computational tasks.
That proved to be critical for recent advances in AI; Nvidias chips and development platforms today power AI technologies such as ChatGPT and other large language models, as well as autonomous vehicles and industrial robots.
Nvidias market capitalization has fallen since its October high amid questions about a possible AI bubble, including concern about Nvidias investments in AI firms that in turn purchase its chips. But the company maintains a valuation of more than $4 trillion as huge swaths of the economy seek to harness artificial intelligence software that its chips are optimized to run.
We’re in unprecedented times where AI is accelerating everything, says Randall.
Advances by Huang and his Nvidia colleagues build on the work of previous winners of the Medal of Honor, first awarded by the Institute of Radio Engineers in 1917 to Edwin Howard Armstrong, who was pivotal in developing radio-related technologies including FM broadcasting.
Other early recipients included Lee de Forest, whose work with vacuum tubes paved the way for todays transistor-powered electronics; Claude Shannon, known for his groundbreaking work tying mathematics to electronic circuitry and digital computation; and radio pioneer Guglielmo Marconi.
The Institute of Radio Engineers merged with the American Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1963, forming IEEE, a nonprofit that in November announced its membership had grown to 500,000 across 190 countries. Today Medal of Honor recipients are selected by IEEEs board of directors based on consultation with a team that includes past IEEE presidents, previous award winners, and other esteemed members of the organization, Randall says.
Several recent recipients of the IEEEs top award have been innovators in computer and internet technology, including Ethernet cocreator Robert Metcalfe, recognized in 1996, and Vinton Cerf and Robert Kahn, instrumental in developing the internets core TCP/IP data routing protocol, recognized in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
Other Medal of Honor winners from the chipmaking industry include former Intel CEO Andrew Grove, recognized in 2000; Intel cofounder Gordon Moore, awarded in 2008; Morris Chang, founder of the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC), recognized in 2011; and Broadcom cofounder Henry Samueli, last years award recipient.
Randall says Huangs work builds upon the innovations of previous Medal of Honor recipients while helping to pave the way for tomorrows technologies.
All those types of things are fundamental to how we got to today, she says. And this is certainly a very important step in the transition of technology for the future.
Stocks rose on Wall Street Tuesday afternoon and approached more all-time highs.
The S&P 500 added 0.6% and is hovering around the record it set in late December. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 482 points, or 1%, after setting a record on Monday. The Nasdaq composite rose 0.6% as of 3:01 p.m. Eastern.
Big tech companies were making some of the most notable moves.
Amazon, which has reached into both retail and technology, surged 3.7%. It is one of the most valuable companies in the world and its outsized stock valuation helped counter losses elsewhere in the market, including a 1.7% loss from Apple.
Micron Technology rose 8.8%, also helping to lift the market.
Nvidia, which is often the biggest force behind the market’s direction, wavered throughout the day and was down most recently by 0.2%.
Sandisk surged 25.8% for the market’s biggest gain. The stock’s value has jumped more than 800% since spinning off from Western Digital last February. The gains have been driven by artificial intelligence and the resulting demand for data-storage hardware. Western Digital rose 17.2%.
Technology companies, especially those focused on artificial intelligence, are being closely watched this week during the industry’s annual CES trade show in Las Vegas.
AI advances helped propel the broader market to a series of records in 2025. Investors will be watching companies for any updates that could shed more light on the big corporate investments in AI technology.
The price of benchmark U.S. crude oil fell 2% to $57.13 per barrel, pulling back from sharp gains a day prior when the market reacted to U.S. forces capturing Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a weekend raid. The price of Brent crude, the international standard, fell 1.7% to $60.70 per barrel.
Treasury yields rose in the bond market. The yield on the 10-year Treasury climbed to 4.18% from 4.15% late Monday. The yield on the two-year Treasury, which moves more closely with expectations for what the Federal Reserve will do, rose to 3.48% from 3.45% late Monday.
Gold prices rose 1% and silver prices rose 5.7%. Such assets are often considered safe havens in times of geopolitical turmoil. The metals have notched record prices over the last year amid lingering economic concerns brought on by conflicts and trade wars.
Markets in Europe and Asia gained ground.
Outside of company announcements, Wall Street is preparing for several updates on the U.S. labor market this week, along with reports on the services sector and consumer sentiment. They will help paint a clearer picture of how vital parts of the economy closed out 2025 and the direction they could take in 2026.
On Wednesday, the U.S. government will release its report on job openings for November. The October report showed that U.S. job openings had barely budged. Weekly unemployment data will be released on Thursday and the broader monthly employment report, for December, will be released on Friday.
Outside of the employment reports, the Institute for Supply Management will release its latest services sector update on Wednesday, while the University of Michigan will release its latest consumer sentiment survey Friday. They are both widely monitored because the services sector makes up the bulk of the U.S. economy, and consumer sentiment has been shaky under the weight of higher prices and economic uncertainty.
The Fed will be analyzing all of that data and more ahead of its next meeting in late January. The central bank cut its benchmark interest rate three times late in 2025 to try and counter the economic impact of a softer jobs market. Lower interest rates on loans can help bolster economic activity.
Cutting rates also risks fueling inflation at a time when it remains stubbornly above the Fed’s 2% target and could potentially reheat. Rising inflation could counter any benefit from lower interest rates and weigh more heavily on the economy.
Wall Street expects the Fed to hold interest rates steady at its January meeting.
Damian J. Troise, AP business writer
AP business writers Elaine Kurtenbach and Matt Ott contributed to this report.
Weve grown strangely comfortable separating things that were never meant to be separated: leadership from management, vision from execution, and perhaps most damaging, culture from strategy.
Inside companies, this split shows up everywhere. A CEO announces a bold future about democratizing access or building a place where people take smart risks. Then culture gets handed to HR as if it belongs on a separate track, while the business strategy unfolds on its own timeline. The result is predictable. Employees are asked to navigate the distance between what leaders say and how the organization actually works.
That distance is not neutral. It creates avoidable friction, the kind of drag that occurs when people try to act on values the organization has not built around. Built Ins 2024 Culture Report shows that 74% of employees feel demotivated in a poor cultural fit, and 61% would leave for a stronger cultural fit even without a major raise. The message is clear: Misalignment is expensive.
NEEDED: CLARITY AND STRUCTURE
But the deeper cost is structural. Avoidable friction emerges when leaders declare a value but never define it or embed it into the operating model.
You say you value accountability, but there is no shared understanding of what it looks like.
You say family first, but still expect employees to respond while out of office.
You say being a good partner matters, but your incentives penalize anyone who extends the sales cycle to build trust.
This is not about leaders being disingenuous. It is about the reality that business is messy, and unspoken values tend to override the ones printed in the handbook. When leaders are not honest about what truly matters, employees spend more energy decoding the hidden rules than doing the work they were hired to do.
The fix is clarity, not charisma.
The organizations gaining ground today are not the ones with inspirational posters or expansive value lists. They are the ones willing to make their values operational. That is why the B Corp movement has more than doubled since 2020, with 10,394 certified companies currently, across 103 countries. Leaders are discovering something simple and powerful: When culture is strategy, performance compounds. According to Deloittes 2025 Global Human Capital Trends, companies with positive cultures deliver 30% higher innovation and 40% better retention. Analysis from McKinsey has shown that companies with a healthy culture are three times more likely to outperform companies with unhealthy cultures.
What these companies share is not moral perfection. It is precision. They name fewer values. They define them. They make them actionable. They hold themselves accountable in the same ways they expect from their teams.
Because here is the truth most leaders overlook: Every organization already has a culture. The question is whether it reflects the strategy or contradicts it.
CULTURE MUST BE VISIBLE
If you want to reduce avoidable frictionand the burnout, confusion, and turnover that followculture cannot remain a sentiment in an employee handbook. It has to be visible in hiring criteria, promotion decisions, meeting norms, resource allocation, and the daily choices that signal what actually matters.
This often feels intimidating, which is why culture gets handed to HR like an extracurricular. But culture is not extra work. Culture is the work. And you do not need more values to fix it. You need fewer values with deeper integrity. When your words match your systems, the organization exhales. People stop guessing. Teams regain momentum.
Alignment is not just a leadership obligation. It is a relief. For leaders, for employees, and for the business.
When culture becomes strategy, you no longer have to push the organization forward. You create the conditions, and the culture pulls the strategy with it.
Natasha Nuytten is CEO of CLARA.
If you were building global teams in 2025, you wouldnt need me to tell you it was a crazy year. We experienced economic volatility and AI disruption. Plus, tightened borders caused companies to adjust and readjust their approaches.
2026 wont be calmer. But the elements we need to master to stay competitive are now coming into focus: Navigating mobility disruption, creating unity across increasingly distributed workforces, and building the transparent, compliant infrastructure needed to employ people anywhere.
1. Rethink mobility strategies
After a decade or so of relative calm, global mobility is now being disrupted from every angle. Thats because geopolitical instability, along with economic shifts and competing visa regimes are fundamentally changing how companies access and rely on talent.
Governments are modernizing immigration with digital platforms like the European Travel Information and Authorisation System, yet the same environment is producing abrupt travel restrictions, emergency evacuations, and rising protectionism. The result is a system that is technically more advanced but practically more unpredictable.
Sharp increases in visa costs in some major economies have pushed many companies to rethink their talent strategies. High fees and uncertainty are accelerating offshoring and nearshoring, especially for high-value work in AI, product development, and cybersecurity. Yet with many companies facing hiring freezes and restructuring, mobility in 2026 will need to be more selective and strategy-led, not volume-driven.
To thrive in this new landscape, companies should build mobility capability in-houseowning compliance knowledge, digital tooling, and real-time monitoringwhile deepening partnerships with specialist mobility consultants who can navigate complex jurisdictions. This kind of hybrid model will ensure companies are poised to rapidly respond to regulatory changes in an uncertain world.
2. Overcommunicate around AI workflows
AI is already embedded in day-to-day work, but without clear communication, it can easily create more noise rather than value: generic content, duplicated effort, and confusion over what is trustworthy. Most teams are still bolting AI onto old workflows, instead of redesigning those workflows with AI in mind.
Overcommunicating around AI workflows means making it clear how AI is used, why its used, and where humans fit in the loop. Teams should openly align on what should be automated, what should remain human-led, and how decisions are made and documented. The clearer the communication, the more consistently teams can use AI without compromising quality or accountability.
For AI to support unity rather than undermine it, organizations should:
Make it clear that AI is a tool for productivity, not as a quiet headcount reducer. Transparency builds trust and encourages adoption.
Establish shared guidelines on when and how to use AI.
Create internal spaces where people can share prompts, tools, and lessons.
3. Hire for soft skills
Tethered to the emergence of AI is an increasing skills gap. Workers often feel confident that they are employable, while employers increasingly question whether available talent matches the demands of modern, tech-driven roles.
Education systems still lean toward linear, narrow training, while careers are becoming more non-linear and cross-functional. In 2026, employers that struggle to find hard skills will need to hire for potential instead by focusing on soft skills like communication and problem solving. Also look for curiosity and comfort with ambiguity.
The most resilient global teams will build around people who can move across domains, learn new tools quickly, and evolve with the business, instead of those optimized purely for todays job description.
4. Understand transparency mandates
Finding the right talent is one problem. Employing people compliantly and fairly across borders is anotherespecially with the new regulatory challenges 2026 is throwing our way. New pay transparency rules require employers to show not just what they pay, but how they arrived at those decisions.
Early evidence from transparency laws in some regions suggests they can meaningfully narrow pay gaps when combined with structured reporting. The next wave, including EU-wide pay transparency requirements, will push employers to formalize compensation frameworks and maintain audit-ready data.
Many organizations are underprepared. Only just over half of employers are putting money into improving wage transparency. Employees often feel in the dark about how pay works, and ad hoc transparencysuch as publishing a few rangeswont fix that. In 2026, companies will need payroll and HR systems that can:
Produce locally compliant payslips
Classify roles consistently across borders
Surface pay data by region, role, and gender
Without this infrastructure, it becomes difficult to demonstrate that outcomes are structured, comparable, and non-discriminatory.
5. Build the infrastructure of global employment
In 2026, global companies are expected to expand quickly, de-risk that expansion, and provide a consistent employee experience worldwide. Spreadsheets and fragmented vendors simply cant keep up.
The response is the rise of dedicated global employment infrastructure: employers of record, global payroll systems, and collaboration suites.
Built correctly, the right stack:
Keeps contracts, benefits, and payslips locally compliant
Provides a single source of truth for workforce data
Enables real-time visibility and control for leaders
Reduces misclassification, tax, and security risks
In a year of continuous change, this kind of infrastructure will prevent global expansion from becoming a tangle of entities, local providers, and hidden liabilities.
PREPARE FOR 2026
Mobility disruption, distributed work, AI, skills gaps, and regulatory shifts are converging into a single test: Can your organization operate as a coherent global system?
The teams that win in 2026 will:
Treat mobility as a strategic lever
Design AI-augmented workflows that enhance clarity and cohesion
Hire for adaptability and potential, not just narrow experience
Treat transparency as a business priority rather than an afterthought
Build compliant employment infrastructure that can scale
The world is not getting simpler. But with the right strategies in place, businesses can leap the hurdles and continue to unlock the benefits of global teams.
Sagar Khatri is CEO of Multiplier.
Six decades after it was created by Congress, the nonprofit that brought America Mister Rogers Neighborhood and Sesame Street will shut down for good.
The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced this week that it would officially shut down, ushering in an uncertain new era for the future of public broadcasting. The organization historically administers funds for NPR, PBS, and more than 1,000 local TV and radio stations nationwide.
The nonprofit entity was signed into law by the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 to manage federal funds for educational TV and radio shows, but it fell victim to a defunding campaign initiated by the Trump administration and approved by a Republican-led Congress.
For more than half a century, CPB existed to ensure that all Americansregardless of geography, income, or backgroundhad access to trusted news, educational programming, and local storytelling, CPB president and CEO Patricia Harrison said in a press release. Harrison said that the CPB decided to dissolve the organization as its final act instead of keeping the nonprofit on life support, which could make it susceptible to additional attacks.
The Trump administration asked for the cuts to the public broadcasting organization, along with a sweeping pullback in foreign aid spending, earlier this year. Congress ultimately complied and in July voted to cut $1.1 billion in federal funds, with no Democrats voting in support.
The public broadcasting fallout begins
The Trump administrations decision to defund the countrys largest public broadcasting organization will likely echo for years to come, but were already starting to see some of its effects.
In early December, a commission that oversees public educational TV in Arkansas voted to part ways with PBS, citing the shortfall of federal funds. That group framed the decision as a cost-saving measure, arguing that it relied on federal funding to pay annual dues of around $2.5 million to PBS in exchange for the broadcasters programming. The organizations commissioners, who voted 6-2 in favor of parting with PBS, are appointed by the governor.
The Arkansas PBS network, now rebranded as Arkansas TV, struck an optimistic tone in its announcement, pointing to a slate of new programming it plans to develop to replace PBS, including two shows for children, two food series, and two new history-focused shows. Public television in Arkansas is not going away, Arkansas TV executive director and CEO Carlton Wing said.
In spite of the states upbeat tone around its new brand and bespoke programming, Arkansas residents broadly support PBS and will likely feel the absence of its long-running educational shows. More than 70% state residents said that PBS is an excellent value to their community in recent surveys. The commissions decision to drop PBS membership is a blow to Arkansans who will lose free, over-the-air access to quality PBS programming they know and love, a PBS spokesperson told Fast Company. It also goes against the will of Arkansas viewers.
Arkansas was the first state to sever its ties with PBS, but more could follow. Public TV and radio stations in rural parts of the country lack the donor base that their urban counterparts rely on and may be particularly vulnerable to new shortfalls in federal funding.
Public support for public broadcasting
The Trump administration has made dismantling public broadcasting a priority in its first year, but that position looks out of step with most of the country. President Trump has expressed his personal ire for public broadcasting, referring to PBS and NPR as two horrible and completely biased platforms and calling on Congress to defund what he characterized as a scam perpetrated by the Radical Left.
Unlike the Trump administration, most Americans approve of the public broadcaster, which has long been funded through the now-shuttered Corporation for Public Broadcasting. In the U.S., 58% of households with a TV reported watching public programming through PBS in the course of a year. PBS consistently ranks as the most trusted source in America for news and public affairs, besting cable and broadcast networks, newspapers, and streaming services.
In 1969, Fred Rogers, the creator and host of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, famously testified before Congress to defend the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which was facing a major budget cut from the Nixon administration just after its creation. His testimony was initially met with a chilly reception, but within the span of six minutes, Rogers won over the senator questioning him. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting went on to secure its full $20 million in federal fundinga comeback story the nonprofit wont be telling in 2026.
What has happened to public media is devastating, said CPB board chair Ruby Calvert. Yet, even in this moment, I am convinced that public media will survive, and that a new Congress will address public medias role in our country because it is critical to our children’s education, our history, culture, and democracy to do so.
Elon Musk took over X and folded in Grok, his sister companys generative AI tool, with the aim of making his social media ecosystem a more permissive and free speech maximalist space. What hes ended up with is the threat of multiple regulatory investigations after people began using Grok to create explicit images of women without their permissionand sometimes veering into images of underage children.
The problem, which surfaced in the past week as people began weaponizing the image-generation abilities of Grok on innocuous posts by mostly female users of X, has raised the hackles of regulators across the world. Ofcom, the U.K.s communications regulator, has made urgent contact with X over the images, while the European Union has called the ability to use Grok in such a way appalling and disgusting.
In the three years since the release of ChatGPT, generative AI has faced numerous regulatory challenges, many of which are still being litigated, including alleged copyright infringement in the training of AI models. But the use of AI in such a harmful way to target women poses a major moral moment for the future of the technology.This is not about nudity. It’s about power, and it’s about demeaning those women, and it’s about showing who’s in charge and getting pleasure or titillation out of the fact that they did not consent, says Carolina Are, a U.K.-based researcher who has studied the harms of social media platforms, algorithms and AI to users, including women.
For its part, X has said that Anyone using or prompting Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content, echoing the wording of its owner, Elon Musk, who posted the same thing on January 3.
The fact that its at all possible to create such images suggests just how harmful it is to remove guardrails on generative AI to allow users to essentially do whatever they want. This is yet another example of the wild disparities, inequalities, and double standards of the social media age, particularly during this period of time, but also of the impunity of the tech industry, Are says.
Precedented
While the scale and power of AI-created images feels unprecedented, some experts disagree that theyrepresent the first real morality test for generative AI.
AIIm using it here for an umbrella termhas long been a tool of discrimination, misogyny, homophobia and transphobia, and direct harm, including encouraging people to end their lives, causing depression and body dysmorphia, and more, says Ari Waldman, professor of law at the University of California, Irvine.Creating deepfakes of women and girls is absolutely horrible, but it is not the first time AI has engaged in morally reprehensible conduct, he adds.
But the question of who bears legal responsibility for the production of these images is less clear than Musks pronouncements make it seem.
Eric Goldman, a professor at Santa Clara University School of Law, points out that the recently enacted Take it Down Act which requires platforms to have, in the coming months, measures to take down illegal or infringing content within 48 hours added new criminal provisions against intimate visual depictions, a category that would include AI-generated images. But whether that would include bikini images of the type Grok is making by the load is uncertain.This law has not yet been tested in court, but using Grok to create synthetic sexual content is the kind of thing the law was designed to discourage, Goldman says. Given that we don’t know if the Take It Down Act has already put in place the regulatory solution necessary to solve the problem at hand, it would be premature to make yet more laws.
Experts like Rebecca Tushnet, a First Amendment Scholar at Harvard Law School, say the necessary laws already exist. The issue is enforcing them against the wrongdoers when the wrongdoers include the politically powerful or those contemptuous of the law, she says.
In recent years, many new anti-deepfake and explicit-image laws have been passed in the U.S., including a federal law to punish the distribution of sexually explicit digital forgeries, explains Mary Anne Franks, an intellectual property and technology expert at George Washington Law School. But the recent developments with Grok show the existing measures arent good enough, she says. We need to start treating technology developers like we treat other makers of dangerous products: hold them liable for harms caused by their products that they could and should have prevented.
Ultimate responsibility
This question of ultimate responsibility, then, remains unanswered. And its the question that Musk may be trying to head off by expressing his distaste for what his users are doing.
The tougher legal question is what, if any, liability Grok may have for facilitating the creation of intimate visual imagery, explains Goldman, pointing to the voluntary imposition of guardrails as part of firms trust and safety protocols. It’s unclear under U.S. law if those guardrails reduce or eliminate any legal liability, he says, adding that its unclear if the model’s liability will increase if a model has obviously inadequate guardrails.
Waldman argues that lawmakers in Washington should pass a law that would hold companies legally responsible for designing and building AI tools capable of creating child pornography or pornographic deepfakes of women and girls. Right now, the legal responsibility of tech companies is contested, he adds.
While the Federal Trade Commission has statutory authority to take action, he worries that it won’t. The AI companies have aligned themselves with the president and the FTC doesn’t appear to be fulfilling its consumer protection mandate in any real sense.
Morgan Stanley is seeking regulatory approval to launch exchange-traded funds tied to the price of cryptocurrency tokens, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday, the first such move by a big U.S. bank.
The bank is looking to launch ETFs tied to the price of cryptocurrencies bitcoin and solana, according to the filings, aiming to deepen its presence in the cryptocurrency space.
Regulatory clarity under U.S. President Donald Trump has encouraged mainstream finance companies to embrace digital assets, which were once considered merely speculative instruments.
In December, the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency also allowed banks to act as intermediaries on crypto transactions, narrowing the gap between the traditional sector and digital assets.
Several investors prefer holding crypto via ETFs, which provide greater liquidity and security, and simplified regulatory compliance compared to managing the underlying asset directly.
“It’s interesting to see Morgan Stanley move into a commoditized market, and I suspect that means they want to move clients that invest in bitcoin into their ETFs, which could give them a fast start despite their late entrance,” said Bryan Armour, ETF analyst at Morningstar. “A bank entering the crypto ETF market adds legitimacy to it, and others could follow.”
In the two years since the SEC approved the first U.S.-listed spot bitcoin ETF, a wide array of financial institutionsmostly asset managershave stepped up to issue such funds.
U.S. banks, which have mostly only acted as custodians of client investments, are looking to evolve from cautious facilitators to active advisers.
In October, Morgan Stanley expanded access to crypto investments to include all clients and types of accounts, according to media reports.
Bank of America followed suit, allowing its wealth advisers to recommend allocations to crypto in client portfolios from January, without any asset threshold.
By Arasu Kannagi Basil and Ateev Bhandari, Reuters
In moments of political chaos, deepfakes and AI-generated content can thrive. Case in point: the online reaction to the US governments shocking operation in Venezuela over the weekend, which included multiple airstrikes and a clandestine mission that ended with the capture of the countrys president, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife. They were soon charged with narcoterrorism, along with other crimes, and theyre currently being held at a federal prison in New York.
Right now, the facts of the extraordinary operation are still coming to light, and the future of Venezuela is incredibly unclear. President Donald Trump says the U.S. government plans to run the country. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has indicated that, no, America isn’t going to do that, and that the now-sworn-in former vice president, Delcy Rodriguez will lead instead. Others are still calling for opposition leaders María Corina Machado and Edmundo Gonalzez to take charge.
Its in moments like this that deepfakes, disinformation campaigns, and even AI-generated memes, can pick up traction. When the truth, or the future, isnt yet obvious, generative artificial intelligence allows people to render content that answers the as-yet-unanswered questions, filling in the blanks with what they might want to be true.
Weve already seen AI videos about whats going on in Venezuela. Some are meme-y depictions of Maduro handcuffed on a military plane, but some could be confused for actual footage. While a large number of Venezuelans did come out to celebrate Maduros capture, videos displaying AI-generated crowds have also popped up, including one that apparently tricked X CEO Elon Musk.
At least anecdotally, deepfake content related to Venezuela has spiked in recent days, says Ben Colman, the cofounder and CEO of Reality Defender, a firm that tracks deepfakes. Those narratives arent tied to any movement and run the gamut from nationalist to anti-government, pro-Venezuela, pro-US, pro-unity, anti-globalization, and everything in between, he says.
The difference between this event and events from even a few months ago is that image models have gotten so good in recent days that the most astute fact-checkers, media verification experts, and experts in our field are unable to manually verify many of them by pointing to specific aspects of the image as an indicator for validity or lack thereof, Colman explains. That battle (of manual, visual verification) is pretty much lost.”
OpenAI told Fast Company that its monitoring how Venezuela is playing out across its products and says it will take action where it sees violations of its usage policies.The State Department’s Global Engagement Center, a federal outfit established to monitor disinformation campaigns aboard, would have previously tracked the situation, a former employee says.
For instance, within the Russian war in Ukraine, the State Department saw deepfakes of leaders trying to convince soldiers to lay down their arms, and fake narratives about additional entrants into the war. During political chaos, its common for online actors to try to disincentivize opposing factions, the person adds. That center was later shut down, after Republicans accused the outfit of censoring Americans. The State Department did not respond to a request for comment by time of publication.
‘Accelerants’
Political deepfakes and AI-generated content are now commonplace. A few years ago, AI-generated TV anchors spreading pro-government talking points, seemingly intended to promote the idea that Venezuela’s economy and security were generally good went viral across the country. In 2024, a party affiliated with former president of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, shared a deepfake video featuring an AI-generated Donald Trump endorsing their platform (that was far from the only example in the country). As even the recent New York City mayoral election showed, AI is often deployed during tense campaign seasons.
The Knight First Amendment Institute, which analyzed the use of AI in elections back in 2024, found that many deployments of AI, especially during election time, arent necessarily meant to deceiveand that misinformation isnt always created from AI. The problem isnt just that its easy to make disinformation with AI, but that people are open to ingesting disinformation. In other words, theres demand for this kind of content.
“Deepfakes in this context aren’t just misinformation, they are accelerants, Emmanuelle Saliba, chief investigative officer at GetReal Security, another firm that tracks deepfakes, told Fast Company. “While some of the fabricated content we’ve seen circulating is created to feed meme culture, some of it has been created and disseminated to confuse and destabilize people during an already volatile climate. Trust is hanging by a thread.”
