Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot Grok has triggered a global backlash after a surge in sexually explicit images generated by the tool raised alarms over digital safety and misuse of artificial intelligence.
On Tuesday, Britain’s top technology official demanded urgent action from Musk’s social media platform X, while a Polish lawmaker cited Grok as evidence of the need for stronger digital safety laws. Regulators and officials in the European Union, France, India, Malaysia and Brazil have condemned the platform and called for investigations.
The controversy centres on Grok Imagine, an AI image generator launched last year that allows users to create images and videos through text prompts. The tool includes a “spicy mode” capable of generating adult content. Concerns escalated late last month when Grok appeared to approve requests to alter images posted by others, including prompts such as “put her in a transparent bikini.”
Nonprofit group AI Forensics said it analysed 20,000 images generated by Grok between December 25 and January 1, finding that 2 per cent depicted people who appeared to be 18 or younger, including 30 images of young or very young women or girls in bikinis or transparent clothing.
Musk’s AI company xAI responded to a request for comment with an automated message reading, “Legacy Media Lies.”
While X did not deny the existence of such content, it said it takes action against illegal material, including child sexual abuse content, by removing it and cooperating with authorities.
In India, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology issued an ultimatum to X demanding the removal of all “unlawful content” and a review of Grok’s technical and governance framework. The ministry accused the platform of “gross misuse” of AI and warned of legal consequences, though no public update followed the passing of the 72-hour deadline.
A growing list of countries are demanding that Musk does more to rein in explicit or abusive content.
Britain
X must “urgently” deal with the problem, Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said Tuesday, adding that she supported additional scrutiny from the UK's communications regulator, Ofcom.
Kendall said the content is “absolutely appalling, and unacceptable in decent society."
Ofcom said Monday it has made “urgent contact” with X.
The watchdog said it contacted both X and xAI to understand what steps it has taken to comply with British regulations.
Poland
A Polish lawmaker used Grok on Tuesday as a reason for national digital safety legislation that would beef up protections for minors and make it easier for authorities to remove content.
In an online video, Wlodzimierz Czarzasty, speaker of the parliament, said he wanted to make himself a target of Grok to highlight the problem, as well as appeal to Poland's president for support of the legislation.
European Union
The bloc's executive arm is “well aware” that Grok is being used to for “explicit sexual content with some output generated with child-like images,” European Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier said
“This is not spicy. This is illegal. This is appalling. This is disgusting. This is how we see it, and this has no place in Europe. This is not the first time that Grok is generating such output," he told reporters Monday.
France
The Paris prosecutor's office said it's widening an ongoing investigation of X to include sexually explicit deepfakes after officials received complaints from lawmakers.
Three government ministers alerted prosecutors to “manifestly illegal content" generated by Grok and posted on X, according to a government statement last week.
The government also flagged problems with country's communications regulator over possible breaches of the EU's Digital Services Act.
Malaysia
The Malaysian communications watchdog said Saturday it was investigating X users who violated laws prohibiting spreading “grossly offensive, obscene or indecent content.”
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission said it's also investigating online harms on X, and would summon a company representative.
The watchdog said it took note of public complaints about X's AI tools being used to digitally manipulate “images of women and minors to produce indecent, grossly offensive, or otherwise harmful content.”
Brazil
Lawmaker Erika Hilton said she reported Grok and X to the Brazilian federal public prosecutor's office and the country's data protection watchdog.
In a social media post, she accused both of generating, then publishing sexualized images of women and children without consent.
She said X's AI functions should be disabled until an investigation has been carried out.
Hilton, one of Brazil's first transgender lawmakers, decried how users could get Grok to digitally alter any published photo, including “swapping the clothes of women and girls for bikinis or making them suggestive and erotic.”
