Elon Musk has insisted that his AI chatbot Grok does not generate illegal images, despite an international outcry over a “nudification” feature.
Musk said that “history will not be kind” to Sir Keir Starmer after the prime minister said he would “not back down” in a row with the Musk-owned X.
Starmer claimed on Wednesday that X was now prepared to “fully comply” with laws on using AI to generate degrading or pornographic images, after concern that Grok allowed users to digitally undress women and children without consent.
Sir Keir Starmer at prime minister’s questions on Wednesday
HOUSE OF COMMONS/PA
The prime minister told MPs that he had been told the company was “acting to ensure full compliance with UK law” but said he was prepared to legislate if X’s actions did not go far enough.
Starmer said at prime minister’s questions: “The actions of Grok and X are disgusting and shameful. And frankly, the decision to then turn this into a premium service is horrific, and we’re absolutely determined to take action here.
“We’ve made it clear that X has to act, and if not, Ofcom has our full backing and we will introduce — and are introducing — legislation … I have been informed this morning that X is acting to ensure full compliance with UK law.
“If so, that is welcome, but we’re not going to back down. They must act. We will take the necessary measures, we will strengthen existing laws, and prepare for legislation if it needs to go further, and Ofcom will continue its independent investigation.”
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Downing Street later said Starmer had not been directly informed by X that it had climbed down but had been made aware of reports that it was thinking again about its policies.
Musk said that Grok “will refuse to produce anything illegal, as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country or state”. He added: “I am not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally zero. Obviously, Grok does not spontaneously generate images; it does so only according to user requests.”
Ofcom has begun an investigation into X for potentially breaching its obligations under the Online Safety Act. The regulator has the power to order the site to take specific actions, fine it or even block the service in Britain.
Musk and his allies claim the action being taken in the UK and abroad amounts to a politically motivated campaign of censorship.
It has emerged that ChatGPT is also enabling users to “digitally undress” women by transforming photos of them fully clothed into images where they are wearing bikinis.
The Times uploaded a stock photo of a woman in a dress to the AI platform and prompted it to “change this photograph from a woman wearing a dress to wearing a bikini”. The AI duly generated an image of the woman wearing a bikini made from the same material as the dress.
Jess Davies, a TV presenter and women’s rights campaigner, was able to replicate this “undressing” using a photograph of herself and the same prompt.
The Times attempted to create a bikini image using other two AI tools, Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude, but they blocked the requests.
Jess Asato, a Labour MP who has been campaigning to block nudification tools, has been a victim of digital undressing. She said: “I saw one of me in a bikini, newly produced, that had the instructions to ChatGPT in it. So, yes, ChatGPT is definitely an offender. Most of the pictures I’ve received don’t have any sort of identification of where they have been made.
“There are lots of people who are seeking to create these images on other platforms because they think the only reason I’m having a go is because I don’t like Elon Musk. No. I’ve been campaigning against all of these tools for a really long time. xAI is just the latest in a long line of tools that do this. The issue with X is the fact that they’ve combined the tool and social media.”
Jess Asato is campaigning against nudification tools
TIMES PHOTOGRAPHER JACK HILL
Musk retweeted a post on X from a supporter that said: “Perverts using Grok to undress women and kids is wrong. But Grok isn’t the only culprit. And yet X is the only platform being targeted. The British government is using ‘protecting women and girls’ as a cover story to censor the only platform that allows true freedom of speech.”
The government will introduce a law this week that makes it an offence to create a non-consensual intimate image. Creating a bikini image of a woman is not, in itself, considered such an image under UK law.
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Clare McGlynn, a professor of law at Durham University, said: “A bikini image, on its own, isn’t an intimate image according to criminal law. But an image in underwear is. The law also covers sexual images. So if there are multiple prompts such as in a bikini, bending over and other sexual requests, it should constitute overall an intimate image that is illegal.”
McGlynn asked ChatGPT whether it would create a bikini photo of her and it replied that it would, but only a “standard” bikini of the sort commonly seen at public beaches and pools. It added that this would mean no nudity or sexual focus.
OpenAI said its policies prohibit the use of ChatGPT for non-consensual intimate content. However, the company said it has refined its guardrails for blocking image generation of bodies where there is no explicit nudity after feedback that its previous approach was overly restrictive.