A few days ago, photos generated by Grok began to appear on the X platform, also owned by Musk, showing scantily clad or fully undressed people, both public and private. Some of these photos depict minors. The people in the photos did not consent to this and were often not even aware that their images had been altered in this way.
Read also: A scandal in the world of AI. Elon Musk's grok praises Hitler and attacks Polish politicians. There is the minister's reaction
It turned out that Grok, at the request of users, was able to convert photos from ordinary to naked ones or during sexual activity. The trend of issuing such commands and uploading their effects to X intensified especially on New Year's Eve. According to media reports, over the last two days, hundreds of women and teenagers have reported finding photos of themselves generated in this way.
“Security vulnerabilities”
On Friday, when the case began to be more widely reported in the media, Grok issued a statement explaining that security vulnerabilities caused such photos to appear on X. “There are isolated cases where users have requested and received AI-generated images of minors in skimpy clothing. xAI has safeguards in place, but improvements are being worked on to completely block such requests,” Grok said.
The authorities of France and India have already taken action in this matter. French Economy Minister Roland Lescure, Digital and Artificial Intelligence Minister Anna Le Henanff and Equality Minister Aurora Berge announced on Friday that notified the prosecutor's office about the illegal content and demanded its immediate removal. The French state media and internet regulator, Arcom, was also notified about the images.
Read also: Elon Musk: “Humanoid robots will be everywhere.” We will lose our jobs
In turn, India's Ministry of Electronic and Information Technology called on X to take corrective action on Grok, including restricting the generation of content containing “nudity, sexualization, sexually explicit or otherwise unlawful content,” and gave it 72 hours to submit a report on the actions taken.
Since its release, Grok has been the subject of controversy, which is related to, among others: with sharing vulgar content, insulting famous people and poor privacy protection.
