Elon Musk has claimed he’s ‘not aware’ of any sexualised images of children generated by X’s AI-powered chatbot, Grok.
In a post on his social media platform today, the billionaire said he has seen ‘literally zero’ examples of such illegal content.
He added: ‘Obviously, Grok does not spontaneously generate images, it does so only according to user requests.
‘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.
‘There may be times when adversarial hacking of Grok prompts does something unexpected. If that happens, we fix the bug immediately.’
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X’s terms of service prohibit users from creating or sharing content that ‘sexualises or exploits’ youngsters.
The Internet Watch Foundation previously told Metro that criminals have apparently used Grok to create child sexual abuse imagery.
Ngaire Alexander, head of hotline at the IWF, said last week that sexualised images of children aged as young as 11 were posted on dark web forums.
Sexually explicit images made without the subject’s consent have flooded X in recent weeks.
In response to a simple prompt on X by a user, Grok would publicly post a digitally altered image of a real person.
Metro has heard from women who say trolls asked Grok to place them in ‘see-through bikinis’ and in sexually provocative situations.
Grok is now telling users that its image-generation service is currently ‘limited to verified Premium subscribers’.
Keir Starmer criticised this at the House of Commons today.
He said: ‘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.’
The prime minister added that he understands X is acting to comply with British online safety laws.
Media regulator Ofcom announced earlier this week that it is considering whether X has violated the Online Safety Act.
If found to have breached the law, Ofcom has the power to fine X or even ban the social media network altogether.
Nearly three in five people want X banned if Grok cannot be reined in, according to a poll by More In Common.
Four in five fear that Grok digitally undressing people is only the beginning and that AI misuse will become worse in the near future.
The government, meanwhile, said it is drafting legislation to make it illegal for companies to provide tools designed to make illicit images.
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