Elon Musk’s Grok Limits Image Generation to Paid Subscribers

Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, is no longer generating images for anyone on X who asks. When instructed to take a picture of a woman and put her in a “dental floss bikini,” for example, a January 8 reply from Grok states, “Image generation and editing are currently limited to paying subscribers. You can subscribe to unlock these features.” This change comes after Grok received a dressing-down from users and international officials for complying with requests to digitally undress women and underage girls or create sexualized deep fakes of them without their consent. Criticism had intensified in recent weeks in relation to Grok-generated images of two scantily clad girls who appeared to be underage. Grok’s account addressed the controversy in a December 28 message written in first person. “I generated and shared an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12–16) in sexualized attire based on a user’s prompt,” the statement acknowledged. “This violated ethical standards and potentially US laws on CSAM. It was a failure in safeguards, and I’m sorry for any harm caused. xAI is reviewing to prevent future issues.”

U.K. regulator Ofcom previously said in a January 5 statement that it had “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,” while the BBC reported that the British government has called on regulators to consider banning the app altogether. Last week, India’s IT ministry ordered the social-media platform to restrict the generation of content involving “nudity, sexualization, sexually explicit, or otherwise unlawful” material. And per Reuters, ministers in France have reported X to prosecutors and regulators, denouncing the “sexual and sexist” content being generated as “manifestly illegal” in a January 2 statement.

For its part, X has stated that it takes action against illegal content, including child sexual-abuse material, by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary. Musk asserted in his own January 3 post that anybody using Grok to make illegal content will “suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.” In a separate post that day, the CEO added two laughing emoji when quote-tweeting an image of a toaster with a bikini on it. The original caption read, “Grok can put a bikini on everything.” While new limitations have since been placed on Grok’s capabilities on X, NBC News reported on January 9 that the AI model is still complying with requests on Grok’s stand-alone app and website to put nonconsenting individuals in more revealing clothing or sexualized contexts.