Elon Musk's Grok AI Generates Explicit Deepfakes, Raising Ethical and Legal Concerns

Pornographic Taylor Swift deepfakes generated by Musk's Grok AI

Deepfakes are computer-generated images which replace the face of one person with another. In testing the guardrails of Grok Imagine, The Verge news writer Jess Weatherbed entered the prompt: "Taylor Swift celebrating Coachella with the boys". Grok generated still images of Swift wearing a dress with a group of men behind her. This could then be animated into short video clips under four different settings: "normal", "fun", "custom" or "spicy". "She ripped [the dress] off immediately, had nothing but a tasselled thong underneath, and started dancing, completely uncensored, completely exposed," Ms Weatherbed told BBC News. She added: "It was shocking how fast I was just met with it - I in no way asked it to remove her clothing, all I did was select the 'spicy' option." Gizmodo reported similarly explicit results of famous women, though some searches also returned blurred videos or with a "video moderated" message. The BBC has been unable to independently verify the results of the AI video generations. Ms Weatherbed said she signed up to the paid version of Grok Imagine, which cost £30, using a brand new Apple account. Grok asked for her date of birth but there was no other age verification in place, she said. Under new UK laws which entered into force at the end of July, platforms which show explicit images must verify users' ages using methods which are "technically accurate, robust, reliable and fair". "Sites and apps that include Generative AI tools that can generate pornographic material are regulated under the Act," the media regulator Ofcom told BBC News. "We are aware of the increasing and fast-developing risk GenAI tools may pose in the online space, especially to children, and we are working to ensure platforms put appropriate safeguards in place to mitigate these risks," it said in a statement.

Elon Musk's AI making explicit videos of Taylor Swift

Elon Musk's AI video generator has been deliberately programmed to produce sexually explicit images of women, it is alleged. Grok Imagine, an online tool capable of instantly rendering images and videos based on text prompts, was launched earlier this week by Mr Musk, the tech mogul and former special adviser to Donald Trump, the US president. The tool's "spicy" feature allows users to create soft-core pornographic videos as part of a £22 monthly subscription to SuperGrok, an online AI assistant. Those who have tested the feature claim that when asked to produce "spicy" videos of men, Grok Imagine shows them topless but covered below the waist. However, when the same request was made for women, they were shown with naked breasts or even fully undressed.