February 5, 2026

This all got started at the start of 2026, when the cosmos called me to have a test drive of Grok Imagine. I've seen profound changes in the art tech ecosystem since I arrived on planet 60 odd years ago, and what I discovered on Grok Imagine was as profound as anything, probably way more.

I picked up on the rumor that naughtiness could be generated on Grok Imagine, and I set out to find out just how naughty. That's just how I'm wired, what is possible? In the process I was flagged by Imagine and perhaps even brought to the attention of the  team. This one's a menace, a bounder, a cad. At the very least, he's a sex addict who couldn't apply the brakes. I literally stayed up for almost 2 nights in a row. That's not something I do very often these days. Ask any traditional Chinese doctor, sleeping, (or meditating) between the hours of 10:00 pm and 2:00 am is crucial. I was staring at screens, iterating, iterating.

Let's take a step back. Back in the late 1970s there were two home video tape standards, VHS and BETA. How did VHS become the dominant format? Adult content available for rent at your local video store, siloed in section kids couldn't enter. Why did the internet spread like wild fire? Adult content was and still is a significant driver. Plenty of folks turn their noses up at porn, call it a scourge, addictive, infidelity adjacent. Porn has been a clandestine energy driving the miracles of the modern era.

If that story is true, then we might expect that porn could be the driver for AI, the force that makes it ubiquitous. Maybe that feels terrible for some folks, but when I was a young lad, having a porn section in the family video store felt... normal. I might have schemed on sneaking into the porn room when I was 14, but my Catholic parents and everyone else's parents just accepted that room as... not a big deal.