UK demands answers from Grok over AI misuse

Britain has demanded Elon Musk’s social media site X explain how its AI chatbot Grok was able to produce undressed images of people and sexualised images of children, and whether it was failing in its legal duty to protect users.

Grok said on Friday lapses in safeguards had resulted in “images depicting minors in minimal clothing” on X, saying it was urgently fixing them.

British media regulator Ofcom said it was aware of “serious concerns” raised about the feature.

“We have made urgent contact with X and xAI to understand what steps they have taken to comply with their legal duties to protect users in the UK,” a spokesperson said.

Grok said on Friday: “xAI has safeguards, but improvements are ongoing to block such requests entirely.”

Creating or sharing non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material, including sexual deepfakes created by artificial intelligence, is illegal in Britain.

In addition, tech platforms have a duty to take steps to stop British users encountering illegal content and take it down when they become aware of it.

The request comes after ministers in France reported X to prosecutors and regulators over the disturbing images, saying in a statement on Friday the “sexual and sexist” content was “manifestly illegal”.