Elon Musk’s Grok bot restricts sexual image generation after outcry

Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot on Thursday began restricting the ability of non-paying users to create fake sexualized images after global backlash from users and governments.

Late last month, some users began tagging Grok on Musk’s social media platform X with prompts such as “put her in a bikini” to generate non-consensual images of real people on X.

The morphed images, including those of celebrities, politicians and some minors, were created by Grok and posted publicly on X.

Before the current restrictions came into effect, Musk participated in the AI ​​stripping trend by having Grok create images of himself in a bikini.

Users and authorities complained and threatened to sue or punish X. Grok initially apologized for the inappropriate photos of what looked like children.

Now, X has placed Grok’s controversial morphing abilities behind a paywall.

Governments including the UK and the European Commission have said they are unhappy with X’s safeguards because the ability to create and edit images is still available. available to paying users.

“While limiting AI image generation to paying users may reduce volume slightly and improve traceability, the abuse has not been stopped. It has simply been placed behind a paywall, allowing X to profit from the harm,” Emma Pickering, head of technology-facilitated abuse and economic empowerment at Refuge, said in a statement.

As public fury over what many call AI-based harassment grows, regulators have taken note, with some proposals to ban X in their countries.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said X must “get a grip” on the “disgusting” trend. “We will take action on this because it is simply not tolerable,” Starmer said.

In veiled reaction, Musk appears to criticize UK regulators outrage by reposting a claim that ChatGPT also allowed the creation of a bikini image of a non-real person through creative, non-explicit incentives.

After condemning Grok for producing sexualized images, the European Commission ordered X to keep all documents relating to Grok to ensure compliance with its rules.

“We must be able to have access to it if we explicitly request it,” a Commission spokesperson said in a statement. press conference.

France, India, Malaysia and Brazil are also examining the platform.

While public figures were the first targets of AI undressing, this trend quickly spread to individuals. On January 3, a user prompted Grok 50 times a day to generate sexualized, non-consensual images of women in his workplace, according to an analysis by AI detection firm Copyleaks.

Gender justice group Ultraviolet has launched a campaign to pressure Apple and Google to remove X from their respective app stores on the grounds that X violates their child sexual abuse guidelines.

Musk has positioned his chatbot as a bolder alternative compared to alternatives such as Gemini, ChatGPT and Claude, which have more features. restrictive guidelines around explicit content requests.