Looks like more trouble is brewing for Elon Musk’s X, as two more countries launch investigations into the capacity for its Grok artificial intelligence chatbot to generate non-consensual nude and sexualized images, which are then being shared publicly in the app.
On Tuesday, the Irish Data Protection Commission announced an open inquiry, according to a government release, while Spain’s Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez posted on X that the country’s Council of Ministers will begin its own examinations of X and xAI. Both nations said their respective investigations were over the generation and amplification of sexualized content.
Last month, Grok came under fire after a new trend emerged on X where users would ask Grok to “put her in a bikini,” or sometimes make more salacious requests, beneath an image posted in-stream. Those requests prompted the AI bot to generate sexualized images of the subject. This extended to all kinds of images of people in the app, including children. Grok, at one stage, was generating around 6,700 images every hour that would be categorized as “sexually suggestive of nudifying,” according to a report from Bloomberg.
X did eventually restrict this option by altering Grok’s source code , but not before Musk lashed out at critics, essentially claiming that X was being targeted by regulators for enforcement, despie many other apps facilitating the same.
Which was a bizarre argument, and a strange stance to take, because it was essentially arguing for users to maintain the capacity to generate non-consensual nudes in the app.
However, X did move to limit the function. Nonetheless, the fact that it was ever possible, and that X enabled this at such scale, raised widespread concerns, and has prompted a range of investigations into X, which could lead to fines and restrictions for the app.
There have already been four investigations launched this year:
- The U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) announced a formal investigation into X and xAI earlier this month in relation to the processing of personal data for X’s Grok AI chatbot, as well as the use of Grok to produce harmful, sexualized image and video content.
- Also this month, French authorities raided X’s Paris offices as part of an investigation into illegal content published in the app, including non-consensual nudes.
- In January, a group of 37 state attorneys general in the U.S. called for X to take more definitive measures to outlaw the generation and dissemination of sexualized images.
- That same month, the EU Commission announced an investigation into X’s Grok AI chatbot, which many have been using to generate non-consensual nudes and sexualized images.
And now Ireland and Spain have added their own separate investigations. So, there are a lot of independent examinations going on, which will undoubtedly result in fines and penalties for X at some stage in the near future.
The question then is just how significant those penalties might be, and then, how Musk will respond.
As some have noted, X’s AI tools have actually, at least in some ways, been designed with built in “spicy mode” features and NSFW options, which align with this kind of engagement.
Clearly, this is something X sees business benefits in, yet, at X’s scale, and with the platform’s influence and reach, that could open up a range of concerns and challenges.
Also, Musk does not like regulation or restrictions of his businesses. He has spent years rallying against all kinds of regulatory approaches, in all of his companies, and the last time X was fined, for breaches of the EU DSA, Musk declared all-out war on the EU Commission, comparing it to the Nazi regime, and calling on the Trump Administration to push for the abolishment of the entire EU framework.
Which is an extreme response, yet Musk’s ties to the Trump team do give him some sway. Both U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio supported Musk’s criticisms, with Rubio posting on X that the penalty handed down was “an attack on all American tech platforms and the American people by foreign governments.”
There’s a risk of an even bigger diplomatic stand-off in future, when penalties are inevitably handed down for this latest concern.
That, of course, shouldn’t stop regulators from going after X, but it will likely lead to another international incident sparked by social media.
Which is increasingly becoming the norm these days, with social platforms including TikTok playing a key role in foreign relations.
Expect this to be the next major battleground, as X faces off with regulators in many regions, and seeks to politicize this as censorship.
