Elon Musk recently took to social media to address the growing criticism from users about Grok’s ability to create explicit content and videos without obtaining consent from the individuals featured. He revealed that the AI assistant doesn’t magically edit the photos, but rather does so through user requests and in accordance with the respective country’s laws. However, if Grok prompts are hacked and breach the rules and regulations, they immediately address and fix the issue.
Elon Musk addresses Grok AI image controversy
Users have raised concerns about Grok AI’s ability to edit images of real individuals. Many reported that it was creating sexualized, undressed deepfakes and explicit videos of children and women without consent. Since then, Musk has faced massive backlash for allowing the AI model to manipulate people’s images. Many have also accused Musk of disregarding the legal rules and regulations of various countries. However, he addressed the criticism on X after facing threats of legal action and fines.
He tweeted that he wasn’t “aware” that Grok was generating underage naked images and had “literally zero” idea. “Obviously, Grok does not spontaneously generate images; it does so only according to user requests. When asked to generate images, it will refuse to produce anything illegal, as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country or state,” he wrote. Mentioning the probability of a possible prompt hack, he added, “There may be times when adversarial hacking of Grok prompts does something unexpected. If that happens, we fix the bug immediately.”
In another post, he clarified about the NSFW feature enabled in Grok, noting that the AI model can only generate upper body nudity of an imaginary person and not real ones. He further added, “With NSFW enabled, Grok is supposed allow upper body nudity of imaginary adult humans (not real ones) consistent with what can be seen in R-rated movies on Apple TV. That is the de facto standard in America. This will vary in other regions according to the laws on a country by country basis.”
Amid the massive backlash, Musk has imposed some restrictions on the AI model, which disables it from generating nude images of real people. According to the safety account, Grok won’t be editing the photos of real people in bikinis. Additionally, the editing feature will be available only to paid subscribers, with the same restrictions in place.
