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Social media platform X is under pressure after reports that its AI chatbot Grok has allowed users to create sexual images of women and children.
Images are being generated by X’s AI tool Grok, which manipulates photos of real people, often removing their clothes or making them pose in suggestive ways.
Elon Musk’s platform is under heavy scrutiny worldwide, including from the UK government. Here’s what you need to know.
How did the controversy begin?
A significant number of X users started reporting examples of Grok altering images to sexualise real women and children towards the end of December and into the new year.
On public X posts that include photos, users can comment asking Grok to edit the image however they want.
Grok can also be used to create images privately. Last summer, a so-called “spicy mode” was introduced, specifically aimed at helping users generate sexually explicit images.
AI bots have safety features designed to reject inappropriate prompts, but reports suggest Grok has been failing to deny users who are in breach of its own rules.
It is not known for how long Grok has allowed real photos of people to be sexualised, but the problem had become widespread by early January, with users able to generate images by using requests such as: “Put her in a transparent bikini.”
An investigation by Reuters news agency found that over a single 10-minute period on 2 January, X users asked Grok to digitally edit photographs of people so that they would appear to be wearing bikinis at least 102 times.
It said the majority of those targeted were young women, but in a few cases, they were men, sometimes celebrities and politicians.
On the same day, X boss Elon Musk posted laugh-cry emojis in response to AI edits of famous people – including himself – in bikinis. He responded with the same emoji when one X user said their social media feed resembled a bar packed with bikini-clad women.
How has the UK government reacted?
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