Elon Musk responds as Grok faces deepfake backlash
Elon Musk is under fire after users exploited his AI chatbot, Grok, to create explicit deepfakes of women and children.
The controversy blew up when people started tagging Grok on X to make sexualized images of celebrities and non-celebrities, including many non-public individuals.
Musk has now encouraged followers to test Grok's image moderation themselves.
What Musk says about Grok's rules
Musk explained that Grok allows upper body nudity of imaginary adult humans with NSFW mode on—comparing it to R-rated movies on Apple TV.
He called this approach the "de facto standard" in America.
Soon after, xAI introduced new safeguards: only paid subscribers can edit images, and explicit prompts are geo-blocked in some regions.
Official pushback and xAI's clean-up
Officials like California's governor slammed xAI as a "breeding ground for predators," while other officials criticized the deepfakes.
In response, xAI restricted features for traceability, while X said it had removed illegal content and suspended accounts involved.
X also removed thousands of posts after a notice from India. Meanwhile, some lawmakers and advocates have called on Apple and Google to remove the X and Grok apps.