WASHINGTON: Elon Musk’s AI tool Grok faced growing international backlash on Monday (Jan 5) for generating sexualised deepfakes of women and minors, with the European Union joining the condemnation and Britain warning of an investigation.
Complaints of abuse flooded the internet after the recent rollout of an “edit image” button on Grok, which enabled users to alter online images with prompts such as “put her in a bikini” or “remove her clothes”.
The digital undressing spree, which follows growing concerns among tech campaigners over proliferating artificial intelligence (AI) “nudify” apps, prompted swift probes or calls for remedial action from countries including France, India and Malaysia.
The European Commission, which acts as the EU’s digital watchdog, joined the chorus on Monday, saying it was “very seriously looking” into the complaints about Grok, developed by Musk’s startup xAI and integrated into his social media platform X.
“Grok is now offering a ‘spicy mode’ showing explicit sexual content with some output generated with childlike images. This is not spicy. This is illegal. This is appalling,” said EU digital affairs spokesman Thomas Regnier.
“This has no place in Europe.”
The UK’s media regulator Ofcom said it had made “urgent contact with X and xAI to understand what steps they have taken to comply with their legal duties to protect users in the UK”.
Depending on the reply, Ofcom will then “determine whether there are potential compliance issues that warrant investigation”.
“HORRIFYING”
Malaysia-based lawyer Azira Aziz expressed horror after a user – apparently in the Philippines – prompted Grok to change her “profile picture to a bikini”.
“Innocent and playful use of AI like putting on sunglasses on public figures is fine,” Aziz told AFP.
“But gender-based violence weaponising AI against non-consenting women and children must be firmly opposed,” she added, calling on users to report violations to X and Malaysian authorities.
Other X users directly implored Musk to take action against apparent paedophiles “asking grok to put bikinis on children”.
“Grok is now undressing photos of me as a child,” Ashley St Clair, the mother of one of Musk’s children, wrote on X.
“This is objectively horrifying, illegal.”
When reached by AFP for comment, xAI replied with a terse, automated response: “Legacy Media Lies.”
Amid the online firestorm, Grok sought to assure users on Friday that it was scrambling to fix flaws in the tool.
“We’ve identified lapses in safeguards and are urgently fixing them,” Grok said on X.
“CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) is illegal and prohibited.”
Separately last week, Grok posted an apology for generating and sharing “an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualised attire based on a user’s prompt”.
“GROSSLY OFFENSIVE”
The flurry of reactions came after the public prosecutor’s office in Paris last week expanded an investigation into X to include new accusations that Grok was being used for generating and disseminating child pornography.
The initial investigation against X was opened in July following reports that the platform’s algorithm was being manipulated for the purpose of foreign interference.
On Friday, Indian authorities directed X to remove the sexualised content, clamp down on offending users and submit an “Action Taken Report” within 72 hours, or face legal consequences, local media reported.
The deadline lapsed on Monday, but so far there was no update on whether X responded.
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission also voiced “serious concern” at the weekend over public complaints about the “indecent, grossly offensive” content across X.
It added it was investigating the violations and will summon X’s representatives.
The criticism adds to growing scrutiny of Grok, which has faced criticism for churning out misinformation about recent crises such as the war in Gaza, the India-Pakistan conflict and a deadly shooting in Australia.