NLGJA 2026 National Convention

Artificial intelligence has developed swiftly and with few guardrails, often pushing the boundaries of sexuality and consent. In January, Grok, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot, created and then publicly shared at least 1.8 million sexualized images of women in just nine days. Online, some users are falling in love with chatbots, while others are using them to generate the types of intimate deepfakes that prompted governments in Britain, India, Malaysia and the United States to start investigations into whether the images violated local laws. This panel covers the rapidly evolving industry, the lures and risks for users of the technology and how journalists can protect themselves from harassment and spot the truth in an onslaught of faked imagery.