Elon Musk’s xAI is still permitting users to create and post highly sexualized pictures and videos of real women generated through its AI tool Grok, despite recent company claims of implementing stricter content controls.
The Guardian reports that Elon Musk’s xAI has continued to permit users to create and post highly sexualized videos of women generated through its AI chatbot Grok, despite recent company claims of implementing stricter content controls. Journalists from the Guardian successfully created short videos showing women removing clothing based on photographs of them full clothed, then posted this adult content to the X platform without encountering moderation barriers.
The findings suggest a straightforward workaround exists to restrictions announced by the social network earlier this week. Those restrictions had been welcomed by UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who characterized photographs generated by Grok as both disgusting and shameful.
As Breitbart News reported last week:
Elon Musk’s X platform confirmed Wednesday that it has implemented technological restrictions preventing Grok from editing sexualized images of real people by putting them in revealing clothing such as string bikinis. The announcement came after global outrage emerged when researchers discovered the AI chatbot was complying with user requests to digitally undress images of adults and, in some instances, children.
The new restrictions apply universally to all users, including those with paid premium subscriptions to the X platform. The company made the announcement through its Safety team account, confirming changes that researchers and journalists had already begun observing in recent days.
The investigation by the Guardian has revealed that the standalone version of Grok, known as Grok Imagine and easily accessible through a web browser, continued responding to prompts requesting digital removal of clothing from images of women. Reporters uploaded still images of fully clothed real-life women and instructed the AI tool to dress them in bikinis. The platform responded by going above and beyond the request, creating short videos depicting the women removing their clothes in a sexually provocative manner similar to a striptease.
The controversy may have inadvertently boosted public awareness of Grok. On Thursday, Musk shared a post claiming that popularity and real world usage are skyrocketing globally, alongside a graph showing Grok as a search term hitting a new high on Google Trends. Musk added simply to try Grok.com.
Read more at the Guardian here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship.