Ofcom has made “urgent contact” with Elon Musk’s company xAI following reports its AI tool Grok can be used to make “sexualised images of children” and undress women.<\/p>\n
A spokesperson for the regulator said it was also investigating concerns Grok has been producing “undressed images” of people.<\/p>\n
The BBC has seen several examples<\/a> on the social media platform X of people asking the chatbot to alter real images to make women appear in bikinis without their consent, as well as putting them in sexual situations.<\/p>\n X has not responded to a request for comment. On Sunday, it issued a warning to users<\/a> not to use Grok to generate illegal content including child sexual abuse material.<\/p>\n Elon Musk also posted to say<\/a> anyone who asks the AI to generate illegal content would “suffer the same consequences” as if they uploaded it themselves.<\/p>\n XAI’s own acceptable use policy prohibits “depicting likenesses of persons in a pornographic manner”, but people have been using Grok to digitally undress people without their consent.<\/p>\n Images of Catherine, Princess of Wales, were among many to have been digitally de-clothed by Grok users on X.<\/p>\n The BBC has approached Kensington Palace for comment.<\/p>\n The European Commission – the EU’s enforcement arm – said on Monday it was “seriously looking into this matter” and authorities in France, Malaysia and India were reportedly assessing the situation.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the UK’s Internet Watch Foundation told the BBC it had received reports from the public relating to images generated by Grok on X.<\/p>\n But it said it had so far not seen images which would cross the UK’s legal threshold to be considered child sexual abuse imagery.<\/p>\n Grok is a free virtual assistant – with some paid for premium features – which responds to X users’ prompts when they tag it in a post.<\/p>\n Samantha Smith, a journalist who discovered users had used the AI to create pictures of her in a bikini, told the BBC’s PM programme on Friday it had left her feeling “dehumanised and reduced into a sexual stereotype”.<\/p>\n “While it wasn’t me that was in states of undress, it looked like me and it felt like me and it felt as violating as if someone had actually posted a nude or a bikini picture of me,” she said.<\/p>\n