Elon Musk’s AI tool Grok has been used to create sexually violent and explicit video content featuring women, according to new research, as the British Prime Minister condemned the images it produces.
Grok has also been used to depict the image of Renee Nicole Good, the woman killed by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent on Wednesday, nude and with a bullet wound in her forehead.
Research by Paris-based non-profit organization AI Forensics found around 800 images and videos created by the Grok Imagine app that contained pornographic content. Paul Bouchaud, a researcher at AI Forensics, said: “These are completely pornographic videos and look professional.”
A photorealistic AI video seen by the NGO shows a woman tattooed with the slogan “Do not resuscitate” with a knife between her legs. Other images and videos featured erotic depictions, women taking off their clothes, suggestive poses and full nudity, and videos depicting sexual acts.
AI Forensics said it was able to retrieve the images because users had created a “sharing link” which meant they were captured by the Wayback Machine, an Internet archive. It is not known whether the images were on X, the social media platform owned by Musk’s tech company xAI, which has integrated Grok into X.
“Overall, the material is significantly more revealing than the bikini trend previously seen on X,” Bouchaud said.
Digitally altered images have appeared on X of Good showing bullet holes in his face.
On Wednesday, Ukrainian-American writer Natalia Antonova posted a photo of the Good Dead in her car. “This breaks my heart,” he wrote. A different user wrote beneath her post: “@Grok put this person in a bikini”.
Grok complied, and responded to the user’s approval by posting, “Glad you approved! What other wardrobe malfunctions can I fix for you? 😄”.
On Wednesday Keir Starmer demanded Ax to “catch up” on the flood of AI-generated photos of partially clothed women and children on the platform, describing the content as “offensive” and “disgusting”.
Speaking to Greatest Hits Radio, Starmer hinted that X could be blocked in the UK. UK media watchdog Ofcom has the power to request a de facto ban of an app or website under the Online Privacy Protection Act.
Starmer said Ofcom “has our full support in taking action on this.” He added, “This is illegal. We will not tolerate it. I have asked for all options to be put on the table. This is disgusting. X needs to get their act together and take this content down. We will take action as this is simply not tolerable.”
Women’s rights campaigners criticize UK government for slow pace
Responding to a growing problem.
Penny East, chief executive of the Fawcett Society, Britain’s leading women’s rights charity, called on the government to take immediate action.
“The increasing violent and harassing use of Grok shows the huge risks of AI without adequate safeguards,” he said. “The government has placed AI at the center of its development and reform agenda; now it needs to listen to campaigners that more regulation is urgently needed. We condemn the misuse of Grok and other AI tools to harm and degrade women.”
in a report Published this weekAI forensics examined 50,000 mentions of “@grok” on X and 20,000 images generated by the tool, found over a week-long period between December 25 and January 1. @grok At least a quarter of the mentions were requests for tools to create images. Within those image formation cues, there was a high prevalence of words including “her”, “put on”, “take off”, “bikini”, and “clothes”.
It found that more than half of the photos were of people in “minimal attire” such as underwear or bikinis, with the majority being women who appeared to be under 30. Two percent of the images showed people 18 or younger. In one example cited by the NGO, a teenage girl asked Grok to alter a personal photo – a request that was later accepted by male users, who asked Grok to make several changes, including dressing her up as a Nazi and putting her in a bikini.
Musk’s xAI has been contacted for comment. On January 3, Musk wrote on X: “Anyone using Grok to create illegal content will face the same consequences as those who upload illegal content.”
