Elon Musk says he is “not aware” of sexualised images of children being generated by Grok, the AI-powered chatbot integrated into X.

 

 

 

In a post, Musk said he had seen “literally zero” examples of such illegal content on the platform. “Obviously, Grok does not spontaneously generate images, it does so only according to user requests,” he wrote. “When asked to generate images, it will refuse to produce anything illegal, as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country or state.”

 

 

 

Musk added that, “There may be times when adversarial hacking of Grok prompts does something unexpected. If that happens, we fix the bug immediately.”

 

 

X’s terms of service prohibit users from creating or sharing material that “s3xualises or exploits” m!nors. The Internet Watch Foundation previously told Metro that criminals had used Grok to create ch!ld s3xual abuse imagery, with reports of s3xualised images of ch!ldren as young as 11 being shared on dark web forums.

 

 

 

Separately, women have reported that Grok-generated images of real people were being circulated without consent, including digitally altered pictures in s3xually provocative scenarios.

 

 

 

Grok is now informing users that its image-generation feature is currently “limited to verified Premium subscribers.”

 

 

UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer criticised the developments during a Commons session, saying: “The actions of Grok and X are disgusting and they’re shameful, and frankly, the decision to then turn this into a premium service is horrific, and we’re absolutely determined to take action.”

 

 

 

Media regulator Ofcom confirmed earlier this week that it has opened a formal assessment into whether X has breached the Online Safety Act. The law prohibits platforms from hosting or facilitating non-consensual intimate imagery and illegal content involving minors.

 

 

 

If found in violation, Ofcom has the power to impose significant fines or restrict access to the platform in the UK.

 

 

 

Polling published by More In Common indicated that nearly three in five respondents would support banning X if Grok could not be effectively controlled, while four in five feared that AI-enabled digital undressing was a precursor to wider misuse.

 

 

 

The UK government has said it is drafting legislation to make it illegal for companies to provide tools intended to create illicit imagery.