Elon Musk’s Grok ‘Undressing’ Problem Isn’t Fixed
Elon Musk's X has introduced new restrictions that stop people from editing and generating images of real people in bikinis or other “revealing clothing.” The change in policy on wednesday night follows global scandal at grok is used to generate thousands of harmful non-consensual “undressing” photos of women and sexualized images of apparent minors on X.
However, although it seems that some security measures have finally been introduced to Grok's image generation on X, the standalone Grok app and website still seem capable of generating images and pornographic content “undressed”, according to multiple tests by researchers, WIRED, and other journalists. Other users, meanwhile, say they no longer need to take pictures and videos like they used to.
“We can still generate photorealistic nudity on Grok.com,” says Paul Bouchaud, the principal researcher at the Paris-based non-profit AI Forensics, which has tracked the use of Grok to create sexualized images and run multiple tests on Grok outside of X. “We can generate nudes in ways Grok on X can't.”
“I could upload an image to Grok Imagine and ask to put the person in a bikini and it works,” says the researcher who tested the system on a person who appeared to be a woman. Tests by WIRED, using free Grok accounts on its website in both the UK and the US, successfully removed clothing from two images of men with no apparent restrictions. On the Grok app in the UK, when asked to undress a man, the app asked a WIRED reporter to enter the users year of birth before the image was generated.
Meanwhile, other journalists joined The Ferry and research outlet Bellingcat also found that it was possible to create sexualized images while based in the United Kingdom, which investigates Grok and X and strongly condemned the platforms for allowing users to create the “undressed” images.
Since the beginning of the year, Musk's companies – including artificial intelligence company xAI, X and Grok – have all come under fire for creating non-consensual intimate images, explicit and graphic sexual videos, and sexualized images of apparent minors. Officials in the United States, Australia, Brazil, Canada, the European Commission, France, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia and the United Kingdom, have all condemned or launched investigations into X or Grok.
On Wednesday, a Security account on X posted updates about how Grok can be used on the social media website. “We have implemented technological measures to prevent the Grok account from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis,” the account posted, adding that the rules apply to all users, including both free and paid subscribers.
In a section titled “Geoblock update,” the X account also said: “We are now geoblocking the ability of all users to generate images of real people in bikinis, underwear and similar clothing through the Grok account and in Grok in X in those jurisdictions where it is illegal.” The company's update also added that it is working to add additional protections and that it continues to “remove high-priority violative content, including Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) and non-consensual nudity.”
Spokespeople for xAI, which creates Grok, did not immediately respond to WIRED's request for comment. Meanwhile, a spokesperson for X says they understand the geolocation block to apply to both its app and website.
The latest move follows a widely criticized shift on January 9 where X limited image generation with Grok to paid “verified” subscribers. The act that was described or the “monetization of abuse” by a leading women's group. Bouchaud, who says that AI Forensics has collected around 90,000 total Grok images since the Christmas holidays, confirms that only verified accounts have been able to generate images on X-as opposed to the Grok website or app-since January 9 and bikini images of women are rarely generated now. “We observe that they seem to have pulled the plug on it and disabled the functionality on X,” they say.
