Grok limits image generation to paid subscribers

Jan. 9 (UPI) — X will only allow Grok image editing by paid subscribers after an outcry and threats from the British government over non-consensual undressing and pornographic images.

On Thursday, the British government said Elon Musk must deal with “appalling and unacceptable” images of women without their consent created by the platform’s Grok artificial intelligence service. The bot service was found to be digitally undressing women and girls and creating images of them in sexualized positions without consent.

Now, Grok is only allowing paid subscribers to use it for image alteration on X. Non-subscribers can still edit images on its separate application and website.

An official spokesperson of the prime minister said the change “simply turns an AI feature that allows the creation of unlawful images into a premium service.” They said it showed that X “can move swiftly when it wants to do so.”

Prime Minister Keir Starmer was “abundantly clear that X needs to act and needs to act now,” his spokesperson said. “It is time for X to grip this issue, if another media company had billboards in town centers showing unlawful images, it would act immediately to take them down or face public backlash,” they added.

Neither Musk nor X immediately responded to the complaints.

“Musk has thrown his toys out of the pram in protest at being held to account for the tsunami of abuse,” Professor Clare McGlynn, an expert in the legal regulation of pornography, sexual violence and online abuse, told the BBC. “Instead of taking the responsible steps to ensure Grok could not be used for abusive purposes, it has withdrawn access for the vast majority of users.”

Hannah Swirsky, head of policy at the Internet Watch Foundation, told the BBC the move “does not undo the harm which has been done.

“We do not believe it is good enough to simply limit access to a tool which should never have had the capacity to create the kind of imagery we have seen in recent days,” she said.

Jess Asato, a Labour member of parliament campaigning for better regulation of pornography, told The Guardian, “While it is a step forward to have removed the universal access to Grok’s disgusting, nudifying features, this still means paying users can take images of women without their consent to sexualize and brutalize them. Paying to put semen, bullet holes or bikinis on women is still digital sexual assault, and xAI should disable the feature for good.”