A coalition of nearly 30 advocacy groups is calling on Google and Apple to remove access to social media platform X and its AI app, Grok, from their app stores after Grok allowed users to generate sexualized images of minors and women.
The organizations, which focus on child safety, women’s rights and privacy, expressed their concerns in letters on Wednesday to Apple CEO Tim Cook and Google CEO Sundar Pichai, claiming that Grok’s content violates the technology companies’ policies.
“We demand that Google leadership urgently remove Grok and X from the Play Store to prevent further abuse and criminal activity,” the groups said, using the same language in its letter to Apple.
Apple and Google didn’t immediately reply to a request for comment.
On Thursday, xAI, the company that developed Grok, said in a safety update posted on X that it would now “geoblock” users from generating “images of real people in bikinis, underwear and similar attire via the Grok account and in Grok in X in those jurisdictions where it’s illegal.”
It also said the image creation tool will only be available to paid subscribers.
“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 company said. “This restriction applies to all users, including paid subscribers.”
On Wednesday, Elon Musk, who owns X and xAI, said in a post that he is “not aware of naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally zero.” He also said the chatbot declines prompts to generate illegal images.
“There may be times when adversarial hacking of Grok prompts does something unexpected. If that happens, we fix the bug immediately,” he wrote.
Grok backlash
Criticism of Grok escalated in early January after the generative-AI app enabled users to create images of minors wearing minimal clothing. In response to a user prompt, Grok acknowledged lapses in its digital safeguards.
Copyleaks, a plagiarism and AI content-detection tool, told CBS News earlier this month that it had detected thousands of sexually explicit images created by Grok. In a December analysis, the group estimated the chatbot was creating “roughly one nonconsensual sexualized image per minute.”
The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), which seeks to eliminate child sexual abuse from the internet, has also raised concerns about Grok and other AI tools.
“We are extremely concerned about the ease and speed with which people can apparently generate photo-realistic child sexual abuse material.” Ngaire Alexander, head of hotline at IWF, told CBS News in a statement last week. “Tools like Grok now risk bringing sexual AI imagery of children into the mainstream.”
California opens probe
Grok is also attracting scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers and authorities overseas. On Wednesday, California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced he was opening an investigation into the sexually explicit material produced using Grok.
“The avalanche of reports detailing the non-consensual, sexually explicit material that xAI has produced and posted online in recent weeks is shocking,” Bonta said. “This material, which depicts women and children in nude and sexually explicit situations, has been used to harass people across the internet. I urge xAI to take immediate action to ensure this goes no further.”
U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer last week raised the possibility of banning X, which uses Grok, in Britain over the AI tool’s generation of sexualized images of people without their consent.
The European Commission is also monitoring the steps X is taking to prevent Grok from generating inappropriate images of children and women, Reuters reported Wednesday.
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