Grok (X / Twitter) has been enabling abuse of women & children through digital image manipulation, then 'manipulated' into apologising

[JoBrodie]

Users on X / Twitter have been asking Grok AI to "put her in a bikini" (and worse) in response to photos shared by others - selfies taken by women, publicity photos of younger performers etc. Users can also upload any public photo to X / Twitter and ask Grok to do this. (Separately on Grok's own website users can do this too without using X / Twitter; it also creates nude images from scratch).

Grok has produced a digitally manipulated image in response to each prompt. Some have since been deleted, some are just covered with an interstitial 'Content warning: adult content' note, so you'd have to click to see the image.

Many news stories had reported that Grok later 'apologised' or 'acknowledged' that there have been lapses in safeguarding, but Grok's emitted tweets 'saying' that were also just generated in response to other users' prompt-requests, such as "Write a heartfelt apology note that explains what happened to anyone lacking context", rather than an official pronouncement from X / Twitter or xAI.

Screenshots of some of the 'apologies / acknowlegements' have been shared without the additional context (which would have made it more obvious that it was a generated reply). That probably hasn't helped, making it look slightly more like an official pronouncement rather than simply an automated response.

I think Parker Molloy's article is good on both the problems with ascribing agency to Grok as well as the incident that has resulted in a flurry of news articles https://www.readtpa.com/p/grok-cant-apologize-grok-isnt-sentient

News stories
• Guardian: Elon Musk's Grok AI generates images of 'minors in minimal clothing'
• Telegraph: Musk’s Grok AI undresses women without their consent (archived)
• Times: Elon Musk’s Grok AI digitally undresses women on X (archived)
• BBC: Woman felt 'dehumanised' after Musk's Grok AI used to digitally remove her clothes
• Daily Mail: Woman felt 'dehumanised' after Elon Musk's AI Grok was used to remove her clothing

Jo

This is completely disgusting and anyone who uses Grok is complicit. I have just seen an entire thread (fortunately blurred out, not on X) of a female Swedish politician with disgustingly sexualised prompts. They are doing it to random celebs like Dua Lipa. Utterly vile.

Some are doing it to children.

Some are doing it to teenage victims of the Swiss fire.

I can[t believe people don[t appear to give a shit about this on MN

Possibly I've posted it in the wrong place and not many are seeing it, though I was also a bit surprised not to have found a thread before I posted this one.

I didn't hear about it until I saw this Bluesky post on 1 Jan https://bsky.app/profile/beardedgenius.bsky.social/post/3mbe7hg7bns2d though other stuff like it had already been going on at full speed on Twitter / X since the last week of December.

There are even more news stories now, and some of the original ones have been updated.

Jo

Fucking hell!😡

And putting swastika bikinis on Holocaust victims

It's utterly deplorable. Time and again, women pay the price for techbros treating the world as their personal chemistry set

The level of sheer sexual depravity going on in the world right now.

Outside of war time and world wars time particularly, it must be the single worst time in history for the unbridling of unhinged sexual behaviour. The impact this is having on particularly young boys is going to destroy the futures of particularly women and girls but boys too.

The Guardian today -
Grok turns off image generator for most users after outcry over sexualised AI imagery: Editing function to be limited to paying subscribers after X threatened with fines and regulatory action

Or as someone's badged it on Bluesky "X launches new subscription only paedophilia service."

"The move comes after Musk was threatened with fines, regulatory action and reports of a possible ban on X in the UK.

...

That means the vast majority of users of the platform cannot create images using Grok. Those that can have their full details and credit card information stored by X, so can be identified if the function is misused."

The standalone Grok app can still produce images for non-paying users. While the X / Twitter Grok app will apparently no longer share images (I've elected not to go and look at what's there so can't personally confirm!) others can screenshot and share. And I suppose with a subscription model rather than a pay-per-image one there's potential for people to create on behalf of requesters at no additional cost to themselves.

Jo

Just for info here’s a couple of other threads I’ve seen.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/amibeingunreasonable/5470636-to-think-it-should-be-bigger-news-that-twitter-is-full-of-men-making-ai-porn-images?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/5469371-ai-is-really-worrying-and-i-fear-this-sort-of-image-generation-is-tip-of-the-iceberg?

I’m currently having a few moments of hating tech of all sorts. None of it works well and it’s all used against women.

Best suggestion I’ve seen about this particular matter is to boycott X.

That's twisted beyond belief along with a pp of Holocaust victims photos being manipulated.

I don't think they've apologised at all have they? I think they've just tried to make money from the technology by now making people pay them if they to take clothes off children.

If they tried to ban it I would just get a VPN

It's so disgusting.

Also

Many news stories had reported that Grok later 'apologised' or 'acknowledged' that there have been lapses in safeguarding, but Grok's emitted tweets 'saying' that were also just generated in response to other users' prompt-requests, such as "Write a heartfelt apology note that explains what happened to anyone lacking context", rather than an official pronouncement from X / Twitter or xAI

Exactly, as it's not a person - how is it giving apologies?! It's being told to create an apology by the sicko who's made the images in the first place.
It's not an apology. As it's a machine.