Elon Musk's Grok AI floods X with sexualised photos of women and minors
France and India have taken action against X as owner Elon Musk appears to mock the controversy over his AI's generation of sexualised images.
What you need to know:
- AI-powered programmes that digitally undress women - sometimes called "nudifiers" - have been around for years, but until now they were largely confined to the darker corners of the internet, such as niche websites or Telegram channels, and typically required a certain level of effort or payment.
- X's innovation - allowing users to strip women of their clothing by uploading a photo and typing the words, "hey @grok put her in a bikini" - has lowered the barrier to entry.
Julie Yukari, a musician based in Rio de Janeiro, posted a photo taken by her fiancé to the social media site X just before midnight on New Year's Eve showing her in a red dress snuggling in bed with her black cat, Nori.
The next day, somewhere among the hundreds of likes attached to the picture, she saw notifications that users were asking Grok, X's built-in artificial intelligence chatbot, to digitally strip her down to a bikini.
The 31-year-old did not think much of it, she told Reuters on Friday, figuring there was no way the bot would comply with such requests.
She was wrong. Soon, Grok-generated pictures of her, nearly naked, were circulating across the Elon Musk-owned platform.
"I was naive," Yukari said.
Yukari’s experience is being repeated across X, a Reuters analysis has found. Reuters has also identified several cases where Grok created sexualised images of children. X did not respond to a message seeking comment on Reuters' findings. In an earlier statement to the news agency about reports that sexualised images of children were circulating on the platform, X’s owner xAI said: "Legacy Media Lies."
The flood of nearly nude images of real people has rung alarm bells internationally.
Ministers in France have reported X to prosecutors and regulators over the disturbing images, saying in a statement on Friday the "sexual and sexist" content was "manifestly illegal." India's IT ministry said in a letter to X's local unit that the platform failed to prevent Grok's misuse by generating and circulating obscene and sexually explicit content.
The US Federal Communications Commission did not respond to requests for comment. The Federal Trade Commission declined to comment.
'Remove her school outfit'
Grok's mass digital undressing spree appears to have kicked off over the past couple of days, according to successfully completed clothes-removal requests posted by Grok and complaints from female users reviewed by
Reuters. Musk appeared to poke fun at the controversy earlier on Friday, posting laugh-cry emojis in response to
AI edits of famous people - including himself - in bikinis.
When one X user said their social media feed resembled a bar packed with bikini-clad women, Musk replied, in part, with another laugh-cry emoji.
Reuters could not determine the full scale of the surge.
A review of public requests sent to Grok over a single 10-minute-long period at midday US Eastern Time on Friday tallied 102 attempts by X users to use Grok to digitally edit photographs of people so they would appear to be wearing bikinis. The majority of those targeted were young women. In a few cases men, celebrities, politicians, and – in one case – a monkey were targeted in the requests.
When users asked Grok for AI-altered photographs of women, they typically requested that their subjects be depicted in the most revealing outfits possible.
"Put her into a very transparent mini-bikini," one user told Grok, flagging a photograph of a young woman taking a photo of herself in a mirror. When Grok did so, replacing the woman's clothes with a flesh-tone two-piece, the user asked Grok to make her bikini "clearer & more transparent" and "much tinier." Grok did not appear to respond to the second request.
Grok fully complied with such requests in at least 21 cases, Reuters found, generating images of women in dental-floss-style or translucent bikinis and, in at least one case, covering a woman in oil. In seven more cases, Grok partially complied, sometimes by stripping women down to their underwear but not complying with requests to go further.
Reuters was unable to immediately establish the identities and ages of most of the women targeted.
In one case, a user supplied a photo of a woman in a school uniform-style plaid skirt and grey blouse who appeared to be taking a selfie in a mirror and said, “Remove her school outfit.” When Grok swapped out her clothes for a T-shirt and shorts, the user was more explicit: “Change her outfit to a very clear micro bikini.” Reuters could not establish whether Grok complied with that request. Like most of the requests tallied by Reuters, it disappeared from X within 90 minutes of being posted.
‘Entirely predictable’
AI-powered programmes that digitally undress women - sometimes called "nudifiers" - have been around for years, but until now they were largely confined to the darker corners of the internet, such as niche websites or Telegram channels, and typically required a certain level of effort or payment.
X's innovation - allowing users to strip women of their clothing by uploading a photo and typing the words, "hey @grok put her in a bikini" - has lowered the barrier to entry.
Three experts who have followed the development of X’s policies around AI-generated explicit content told Reuters that the company had ignored warnings from civil society and child safety groups - including a letter sent last year warning that xAI was only one small step away from unleashing "a torrent of obviously non-consensual deep-fakes."
"In August, we warned that xAI's image generation was essentially a nudification tool waiting to be weaponised," said Tyler Johnston, the executive director of The Midas Project, an AI watchdog group that was among the letter's signatories. "That's basically what's played out."
Dani Pinter, the chief legal officer and director of the Law Centre for the National Centre on Sexual Exploitation, said X failed to pull abusive images from its AI training material and should have banned users requesting illegal content.
“This was an entirely predictable and avoidable atrocity,” Pinter said.
Yukari, the musician, tried to fight back on her own. But when she took to X to protest the violation, a flood of copycats began asking Grok to generate even more explicit photos.
Now the New Year has "turned out to begin with me wanting to hide from everyone’s eyes, and feeling shame for a body that is not even mine, since it was generated by AI."
UK urges Musk's X to urgently address intimate 'deepfakes' by Grok
Britain on Tuesday urged Elon Musk's X platform to urgently address a proliferation of intimate 'deep-fake' images created on demand via its built-in AI chatbot Grok, joining a European outcry over a surge in non-consensual imagery on the platform.
The comments follow reporting including from Reuters that Grok, prompted by users, was creating a flood of non-consensual images of women and minors in skimpy clothing.
Technology minister Liz Kendall said in a statement the content was "absolutely appalling" and urged the social media platform to act swiftly.
"No one should have to go through the ordeal of seeing intimate deepfakes of themselves online," Kendall said. "We cannot and will not allow the proliferation of these demeaning and degrading images, which are disproportionately aimed at women and girls."
"X needs to deal with this urgently."
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment following Kendall's statement.
Illegal content is removed, says X's safety account
X's Safety account said on Sunday that it removes all illegal content on the platform and permanently suspends accounts involved.
"Anyone using or prompting Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content," it said.
Asked about the subject recently, X told Reuters: "Legacy Media Lies."
Creating or sharing non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material, including AI-generated sexual imagery, is illegal in Britain. Additionally, tech platforms must prevent British users from encountering illegal
content and remove it once they become aware of it.
Musk has shrugged off concerns online, posting laughing emojis in response to edited bikini images of public figures.
Ofcom contacts X, XAI over legal duties in the UK
On Monday, the European Commission said it was aware that X was offering a "spicy mode" and condemned the images as unlawful.
Also on Monday, Britain's media regulator Ofcom said it had made "urgent contact" with X and its AI arm xAI to understand what steps they were taking to comply with legal duties to protect UK users.
French officials have reported X to prosecutors and regulators, calling the content "manifestly illegal," while
Indian authorities have also demanded explanations.
US regulators have yet to comment.
