Elon Musk makes Grok's sexualized AI images a 'premium service' for X subscribers

I want to make it crystal clear that any sexualized or inappropriate images we use on the report are 100% real. It's immoral to produce this with Ai.

Elon Musk makes Grok's sexualized AI images a 'premium service' for X subscribers

Elon Musk's startup xAI has limited the image generation tool on its Grok chatbot to paying subscribers of social media platform X

By Niamh Rowe, Quartz Media

Jan 12, 2025

Elon Musk's startup xAI has limited the image generation tool on its Grok chatbot to paying subscribers of social media platform X.

It follows a wave of backlash this week over Grok being used to create sexualized and non-consensual images including depictions of women and children, in what X has previously referred to as "spicy mode."

When Reuters asked to generate an edited image of a reporter in a bikini, Grok replied that the feature was now only available to paying users, the outlet reported on Friday. While the move may be intended to limit the pace of X users generating sexualized images, Grok’s standalone app still allows image creation without a subscription, raising doubts about whether the company is addressing the root problem.

Restricting Grok's image-generation tool to paying subscribers makes creating deepfakes a “premium service” and is “not a solution," a spokesperson for the UK prime minister said Friday, adding that the move is “insulting” to victims of misogyny and sexual violence.

Grok is built by xAI, Musk’s artificial-intelligence startup, and tightly integrated into X — a platform Musk has repeatedly framed as a buttress of free speech and limited moderation. That has made Grok popular among users frustrated with more tightly constrained AI tools, and has made the bot a stress test for how unbridled AI behaves at scale, with users tagging Grok directly in posts to generate or edit images in real time.

But the fallout has been international, with European lawmakers condemning the tool and urging legal action.

The UK's telecommunications regulator Ofcom said on Monday it was aware of "serious concerns" raised about the feature.

"We have 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," a spokesperson said in a statement shared on X.

"This is not spicy. This is illegal. This is appalling. This is disgusting. This is how we see it, and this has no place in Europe," European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier told reporters on Monday. Germany’s media minister Wolfram Weimer described the phenomenon as the “industrialization of sexual harassment."