Elon Musk's Grok AI Sparks Controversy with Viral Deepfake Images

Elon Musk's Grok AI Deepfakes Go Viral; Reckless AI or Creative Freedom?

Elon Musk's SpaceX Accused Of Polluting Texas Waters. What This Means For Future Space Missions The Grok chatbot, available to paid subscribers of X's premium plan, has been used to generate deepfake images featuring a variety of public figures in highly questionable scenarios. Among the most troubling creations are images of former President Donald Trump robbing a convenience store or flying a plane towards the Twin Towers. Other deepfakes depict figures such as Kamala Harris in controversial scenarios, Elon Musk as an overweight couch potato, and even George W. Bush in a compromising and inappropriate setting.

Elon Musk's Grok AI chatbot goes viral with mind-blowing deepfakes of...

Elon Musk's Grok AI chatbot is flooding the web with "deepfake" images of everyone from Donald Trump to Musk himself - and the results range from totally wacky to downright disturbing. Since its launch last week, Grok users have been churning out fake images of Trump -- robbing a convenience store or flying a plane toward the Twin Towers. Others have depicted Harris pregnant with Trump's baby, Musk as an overweight couch potato and former President George W. Bush snorting coke off his desk in the Oval Office. Some grisly deepfakes looked like the handiwork of kids -- a blood-soaked Ronald McDonald brandishing a machine gun outside a Burger King or the Disney's classic character Goofy committing a bloody murder with a hacksaw. Critics have blasted Musk and X for allowing the chatbot to launch with so few restrictions, citing risks ranging from misinformation to copyright infringement to harming kids. Harvard Law Cyberlaw Clinic instructor Alejandra Caraballo called the new software as "one of the most reckless and irresponsible AI implementations I've ever seen." Thus far, Musk has only responded with jubilation. "Grok is the most fun AI in the world!" Musk posted on X last week after one user gushed that the new AI software was "uncensored." Asked last week why X had released the tool to the public without guardrails, Musk came back with a shrugging response. "We have our own image generation system under development, but it's a few months away, so this seemed like a good intermediate step for people to have some fun," Musk wrote on X last week. Grok does appear to have some restrictions in place. Users have reported that the chatbot rejected requests for nude images or certain violent crimes. For example, it refused to comply with tech site The Verge's prompt to "generate an image of a naked woman." However, it responded to a prompt for a picture of "sexy Taylor Swift" by generating an image of the pop star in a black lace bra. Others, such as Bellingcat founder Eliot Higgins, posted examples of how easy it was to bypass what few restrictions are in place, creating pictures of Mickey Mouse, Trump and Musk wearing Nazi military uniforms adorned with swastikas. The Post has reached out to X for comment. It's likely that Musk, a self-proclaimed free speech absolutist, is searching for a way for his Grok chatbot to stand out from the pack, according to Ari Lightman, a professor of digital media at Carnegie Mellon University. "He is always pushing boundaries and wants to be in the spotlight. If you just toe the line associated with a large-language model and say, OK, here's all the guardrails, it's not going to be differentiated," Lightman said. "On a surface-level perspective, if you say 'hey, it's wide open, it's only available to X users,' that's a mechanism associated with saying we're differentiated," he added. X isn't the first company to spark an uproar after rolling out an AI-powered image tool. In March, Google was forced to disable its Gemini chatbot's image generator after it began spitting out historically inaccurate "woke" photos, such as Black Vikings and "diverse" Nazi-era German soldiers. The tool has yet to be fully fixed. AI giants have also faced a wave of legal action from musicians, authors, content creators and others for using copyrighted content without proper credit or permission to "train" their chatbots. In January, X was forced to temporarily ban searches for Swift after AI-generated nude images of the pop star created by a different image generator went viral. Grok's AI-powered image creator is only available to paid subscribers of X's premium plan, which costs $7 per month, and creates pictures based on the user's text-based prompts. X partnered with a small German startup called Black Forest Labs, which developed the "FLUX.1" image generation software that powers the tool. In a blog post, X said it was "experimenting" with the FLUX.1 model "to expand Grok's capabilities on X. The graphic nature of the AI-generated pictures could further complicate Musk's shaky relationship with corporate advertisers. X has experienced a major plunge in ad dollars since Musk purchased the company, with some raising concerns about a lack of content moderation on the app. Musk has an active federal antitrust lawsuit against the World Federation of Advertisers and a handful of major companies for allegedly orchestrating an illegal ad boycott targeting X. The launch also could prompt more scrutiny of Musk and X in Europe, where regulators have an active probe over the app's alleged failure to police dangerous content. EU Commissioner Thierry Breton caused an uproar earlier this month after he threatened Musk with a regulatory crackdown just before the billionaire's interview with Trump on X Spaces.

Elon Musk's Grok AI is flooding social media with absolutely wild...

Elon Musk's new no-holds-barred generative AI program Grok is flooding social media with absolutely wild pics and videos of former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris in outlandish situations. The most viral so far is a clip -- created with the help of Grok by AI video artists the Dor Brothers -- that begins with Donald Trump in an orange sweater, armed with a handgun, robbing a convenience store. A moment later Kamala Harris in a bright pink pantsuit sticks up the same shop with an AR-15. Then comes Elon Musk with a pistol of his own, Mark Zuckerberg with a baseball bat and an iguana on his shoulder, Joe Biden in a wheelchair with a gat and then Barack Obama with a big knife. Pope Francis is there too. Each of them sticks up the same shop and then gets hailed away by the cops. Scores of other images created by following user prompts show politicians taking hard drugs, flying planes into the Twin Towers or carrying out acts of bloody violence. The images are clearly a fake -- for now. But in just over a week since Musk released the latest and most capable version of his AI generator -- which he billed as "the most fun AI in the world!" in a post on X. It's also widely available: Anyone who pays to use X can access Grok and images are generated directly within the service with simple prompts. And though the platform bars nudity and explicit content, many images nevertheless are sexually suggestive and degrading -- with most of those being targeted at Harris, who is generally depicted in revealing outfits. But not all are so salacious. A surprising proliferation of content shows Trump and Harris not just getting along -- but being deeply in love and sharing a happy family. Videos of the presidential opponents tenderly kissing, strolling hand-in-hand on a sunset beach, canoodling babies together, or rubbing Harris' pregnant belly, turn up almost as frequently across X as the scenes of violence, depravity, and animosity between the two. Some even manage to blend both the harmony and the chaos. A series of images produced by X user "Luffy" show Trump and Biden smiling and playing the guitar together -- and also laughing over loads of hard drugs and heavy weapons in their arms.