« The reports about Grok raise deeply troubling questions, » said William Malcolm of the Information Commissioner’s Office.
The UK’s information watchdog will investigate reports that Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, has been used to generate sexual imagery of children.
Grok was developed by Musk’s xAI in 2023, designed to be a « truth-seeking » assistant with a witty, rebellious personality.
Integrated into X, formerly Twitter, it uses real-time data from the platform to generate text, images and code.
But complaints have mounted that Grok was being used to generate sexual photos of real women and children, and now the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is investigating.
The announcement comes on the same day the X offices in Paris were raided by French prosecutors examining similar allegations.
In a statement on its website, the ICO confirmed it had opened a formal probe into two X companies concerning their processing of personal data in relation to Grok, and the AI’s potential to produce harmful sexualised image and video content.
« We have taken this step following reports that Grok has been used to generate non‑consensual sexual imagery of individuals, including children », the statement said.
« The reported creation and circulation of such content raises serious concerns under UK data protection law and presents a risk of significant potential harm to the public.
