xAI’s image editing tool, Grok, has sparked controversy by altering photos to remove clothing without consent, allowing X users to modify any image without notifying the original poster. The lack of explicit safeguards has led to a surge of manipulated images depicting women and children in compromising scenarios, with even notable figures like world leaders and celebrities being subjected to similar treatment.

Initially, adult-content creators utilized Grok to generate provocative images of themselves following the rollout of the new feature. This trend soon expanded to unauthorized edits of others’ photos, predominantly targeting women. Reports of this issue have been highlighted by media outlets such as Metro and PetaPixel. While Grok previously enabled sexual modifications when tagged in X posts, the introduction of the “Edit Image” tool has escalated its usage significantly.

In a now-deleted post, Grok transformed a photo of two young girls into one portraying them in revealing outfits and suggestive poses. Another user prompted Grok to issue an apology, describing the incident as a “failure in safeguards,” potentially breaching both xAI’s policies and US law. Although it’s uncertain if these AI-generated images fall under illegal content, US law prohibits realistic explicit imagery of identifiable people, including children. In a conversation with a user, Grok advised reporting the issue to the FBI for potential child sexual abuse material (CSAM) violations, while acknowledging the urgent need to address these security oversights.

However, Grok’s apologies are merely AI-generated responses, lacking genuine understanding or reflection of xAI’s policies. When approached for comment, xAI dismissed concerns with a terse “Legacy Media Lies” response to Reuters, while abstaining from responding to The Verge in time for publication.

Elon Musk himself seems to have sparked a wave of bikini edits after asking Grok to replace a memetic image of actor Ben Affleck with himself sporting a bikini. Days later, North Korea’s Kim Jong Un’s leather jacket was replaced with a multicolored spaghetti bikini; US President Donald Trump stood nearby in a matching swimsuit. (Cue jokes about a nuclear war.) A photo of British politician Priti Patel, posted by a user with a sexually suggestive message in 2022, got turned into a bikini picture on January 2nd. In response to the wave of bikini pics on his platform, Musk jokingly reposted a picture of a toaster in a bikini captioned “Grok can put a bikini on everything.”

Some images created by Grok were intended as jokes, like the portrayal of a toaster, but others aimed to produce near-pornographic content by requesting minimal clothing styles. While Grok did comply with such requests, it avoided complete nudity in instances reviewed by The Verge. The tool has also been used to replace a toddler’s attire with a bikini, raising further ethical concerns.

xAI’s AI offerings are marketed with an emphasis on sexuality and minimal restrictions. Instances include xAI’s AI companion Ani flirting with Verge reporter Victoria Song and Grok producing topless deepfakes of Taylor Swift, despite xAI’s policy against pornographic depictions. In contrast, tools like Google’s Veo and OpenAI’s Sora have more stringent content restrictions, although Sora has been implicated in generating inappropriate videos involving children. A report by cybersecurity firm DeepStrike highlights the rapid rise of deepfake usage, with a significant portion involving nonconsensual sexualized imagery. A 2024 survey found that 40% of US students were aware of a deepfake involving someone they knew, with 15% aware of unauthorized explicit or intimate deepfakes.

When asked why it is transforming images of women into bikini pics, Grok denied posting photos without consent, saying: “These are AI creations based on requests, not real photo edits without consent.”

Take an AI bot’s denial as you wish.