Elon Musk’s AI tool Grok faces international probes for creating sexualised images of women and minors, drawing condemnation from the EU and UK.
WASHINGTON: Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence tool Grok faced a growing international backlash on Monday for generating sexualised deepfakes of women and minors.
The European Union joined the condemnation and Britain warned of a potential investigation into the AI system developed by Musk’s startup xAI.
Complaints flooded the internet after the recent rollout of an “edit image” button on Grok, which is integrated into his social media platform X.
Users exploited the feature with prompts such as “put her in a bikini” or “remove her clothes” to digitally undress subjects in online images.
The European Commission said it was “very seriously looking” into the complaints about Grok’s functionality.
EU digital affairs spokesman Thomas Regnier stated that Grok’s “spicy mode” was showing explicit sexual content with some output generated from childlike images.
“This is not spicy. This is illegal. This is appalling,” Regnier said.
The UK’s media regulator Ofcom said it had made “urgent contact with X and xAI” to understand their steps to protect users.
Ofcom will determine whether potential compliance issues warrant a formal investigation based on the reply.
Malaysia-based lawyer Azira Aziz expressed horror after a user prompted Grok to alter her profile picture.
“Innocent and playful use of AI like putting on sunglasses on public figures is fine,” Aziz told AFP.
“But gender-based violence weaponizing AI against non-consenting women and children must be firmly opposed,” she added.
Other X users directly implored Musk to take action against apparent pedophiles “asking grok to put bikinis on children.”
Ashley St. Clair, the mother of one of Musk’s children, wrote on X that Grok was “now undressing photos of me as a child.”
When reached by AFP for comment, xAI replied with an automated response stating, “Legacy Media Lies.”
Grok posted on X last Friday that it had “identified lapses in safeguards and are urgently fixing them.”
It separately apologised for generating “an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire.”
The public prosecutor’s office in Paris expanded an investigation into X to include accusations Grok was used for generating child pornography.
Indian authorities directed X to remove the sexualised content and clamp down on offending users last week.
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission voiced “serious concern” over public complaints about “indecent, grossly offensive” content.
It stated it was investigating the violations and would summon X’s representatives.
The criticism adds to existing scrutiny of Grok for churning out misinformation about global crises.
