𝓤𝓷𝓲𝓽𝓮𝓭 𝓝𝓮𝔀𝓼

Elon Musk has been warned by the UK Government to urgently deal with the “appalling” harm X’s artificial intelligence tool Grok is doing with the creation of sexualised deepfake images.

Technology Secretary Liz Kendall backed regulator Ofcom, which has asked X and xAI to outline the steps they are taking to comply with legal obligations to protect UK users of the social media platform. Ms Kendall said: “What we have been seeing online in recent days has been absolutely appalling, and unacceptable in decent society. No one should have to go through the ordeal of seeing intimate deepfakes of themselves online.

“We cannot and will not allow the proliferation of these demeaning and degrading images, which are disproportionately aimed at women and girls.

“X needs to deal with this urgently. It is absolutely right that Ofcom is looking into this as a matter of urgency, and it has my full backing to take any enforcement action it deems necessary.”

A post on the Grok X account said that there have been “isolated cases where users prompted for and received AI images depicting minors in minimal clothing”, and added: “xAI has safeguards, but improvements are ongoing to block such requests entirely.”

Under the Online Safety Act in the UK, social media firms must prevent and remove child sexual abuse material when they become aware of it.

Ofcom has made “urgent contact” with Mr Musk’s X and xAI to understand what steps have been taken to address this, but has not launched an investigation.

A spokesperson for the regulator said on Monday: “Tackling illegal online harm and protecting children remain urgent priorities for Ofcom.

“We are aware of serious concerns raised about a feature on Grok on X that produces undressed images of people and sexualised images of children.

“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.

“Based on their response, we will undertake a swift assessment to determine whether there are potential compliance issues that warrant investigation.”