X ‘performing to adjust to UK legislation’ after outcry over sexualised pictures

[ad_1] Elon Musk’s X is known to have advised the federal government it's performing to adjust to UK legislation, after almost a fortnight of public outcry at the usage of its AI device Grok to govern pictures of ladies and youngsters by eradicating their garments.

Keir Starmer advised the Home of Commons on Wednesday that pictures generated by Grok had been “disgusting” and “shameful”, however stated he had been knowledgeable that X was “performing to make sure full compliance with UK legislation”.

“If that's the case, that's welcome,” the prime minister stated. “However we aren't going to again down. They need to act. We'll take the required measures. We'll strengthen current legal guidelines and put together for laws if it must go additional, and Ofcom will proceed its impartial investigation.”

Ofcom, the media regulator, launched its investigation into X on Monday after a deluge of sexual pictures appeared on Musk’s platform.

Authorities officers are understood to have been talking with X, however ministers are monitoring the affect of the steps taken by the social media website. There's frustration that guardrails different AI suppliers have put in place to forestall such pictures being created seem not for use by Grok.

“We're holding an in depth watch on the state of affairs,” Starmer stated. He spoke as new polling confirmed 58% of Britons imagine X must be banned within the UK if the platform doesn’t crack down on AI-generated, nonconsensual pictures. Extra in Frequent’s analysis additionally discovered 60% imagine UK ministers ought to come off X, and 79% worry AI misuse is about to turn into a much bigger downside.

Musk v Starmer: will UK ban X over Grok nudification? | The Newest In current days, X is known to have restricted the @grok account, which many customers have been asking to partially undress celebrities and others, so it now not generates pictures of actual folks in revealing clothes.

The sharing of nonconsensual intimate pictures, akin to these created by asking an AI to place folks in underwear and bikinis and in sexual poses, is illegitimate beneath the On-line Security Act.

Final week, the Web Watch Basis, a UK-based watchdog, stated it had seen customers on a darkish internet discussion board boasting of utilizing the Grok app to create sexualised and topless imagery of women aged between 11 and 13.

On Wednesday, Musk stated he was “not conscious of any bare underage pictures generated by Grok. Actually zero.”

“Clearly, Grok doesn't spontaneously generate pictures, it does so solely in accordance with consumer requests,” he wrote in an X publish. “When requested to generate pictures, it can refuse to provide something unlawful, because the working precept for Grok is to obey the legal guidelines of any given nation or state. There could also be occasions when adversarial hacking of Grok prompts does one thing sudden. If that occurs, we repair the bug instantly.”

In the meantime, Liz Kendall, the know-how secretary, renewed her criticism of xAI – the corporate that owns X and Grok – over its resolution to restrict Grok’s picture technology and modifying features to paying subscribers, calling it “an additional insult to victims, successfully monetising this horrific crime”.

In a letter to MPs on the Commons choose committee for science, innovation and know-how, she stated a wider ban on AI-enabled nudification instruments “will apply to purposes which have one despicable goal solely: to make use of generative AI to show pictures of actual folks into pretend nude footage and movies with out their permission”.

However the committee chair, Chi Onwuruh, has criticised the federal government’s slowness in making use of the ban given “experiences of those disturbing Grok deepfakes appeared in August 2025”.

She stated it was “unclear whether or not this ban – which seems to be restricted to apps which have the only real operate of producing nude pictures – will cowl multipurpose instruments like Grok”.