Using Grok to create AI-generated sexualized images of minors will result in the same consequences as uploading those images, X has said.
In an X post late Saturday, the social media company said it would remove illegal content, including child sexual abuse material, and permanently suspend accounts that participated in the activity.
“Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content,” Elon Musk said in a reply to an X post on Saturday, which was later reposted by the official X account.
The official X page pointed users to its policy page, which states it has “zero tolerance for any forms of child sexual exploitation” and that it removes “certain media depicting physical child abuse.”
It was the company’s first official comment since Grok faced backlash for being used to generate nonconsensual sexualized images of real people, including minors, last week. Some X users tagged Grok on the social media site and asked it to digitally undress people in photos. The AI tool generated fake images of the subject showing more skin, wearing a bikini, or altering the position of their body.
A Business Insider review on Monday found that Grok was still generating images that digitally removed the clothing of people, who appeared to be adults, along with other sexualized alterations.
When asked for comment on Monday, xAI, the company behind Grok and owner of X, sent an automatic email response that did not address the issue.
Grok under fire for ‘remove clothes’ trend
Last week, Grok’s actions drew the attention of government officials in France, India, and the UK.
French authorities are investigating the growth of AI-generated deepfakes from Grok, the Parisian prosecutor’s office told Politico, while India’s Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology wrote a letter to X asking it to undergo a “comprehensive technical, procedural and governance-level review” and remove any content violating the country’s laws.
The UK’s minister for victims & violence against women and girls, Alex Davies-Jones, urged Musk, the CEO of xAI, in a Friday X post to take action against the AI images.
Other AI companies have faced challenges with users generating sexualized images of real people. The “remove clothes” Grok trend spiked after Wired reported on December 23 that OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini AI models were being used to generate images of real women in bikinis from clothed photos.
It’s not the first time xAI has faced backlash for the actions of its chatbot. In July, the company apologized for Grok’s inflammatory posts after it went on a 16-hour rant that included antisemitic jokes and praising Adolf Hitler.
Musk has positioned Grok as an anti-woke AI that would favor truth over “political correctness.” In August, xAI added a “spicy” mode to Grok’s image and video generator that let users create pornographic images of AI-generated women.
Earlier last week, Musk’s X post showed that he was aware of the undressing trend, asking Grok to add his own face to a digitally altered image of the actor Ben Affleck wearing a bikini.
After Grok generated the image with his face added, Musk replied, “Perfect.”
