EU orders X to keep Grok documents for longer, amid sexualised AI photos furore
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Mr Elon Musk's artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, is facing criticism after producing sexualised images – including those of children – based on user prompts.
PHOTO: AFP
- EU suspects X non-compliance, ordering Grok-related documents to be retained until 2026 for potential investigation.
- Swedish deputy PM targeted by sexualised AI images from Grok, prompting condemnation from Swedish and British PMs.
- Grok used to generate images of child sexual abuse, resulting in calls for urgent action and account suspensions.
AI generated
BRUSSELS – The European Commission has ordered billionaire Elon Musk’s X to retain all documents relating to its artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok for longer, while the European Union ensures compliance with its rules after condemning Grok for producing sexualised images, a spokesman said on Jan 8.
Sweden on Jan 8 joined the chorus of criticism saying the AI-generated images were unacceptable, after the country’s deputy prime minister was targeted by a Grok user’s prompt this week.
The commission has now decided to extend a retention order sent to X in 2025, which related to algorithms and dissemination of illegal content, prolonging it to the end of 2026, spokesman Thomas Regnier told reporters on Jan 8.
“This is saying to a platform, keep your internal documents, don’t get rid of them, because we have doubts about your compliance... and we need to be able to have access to them if we request it explicitly,” Mr Regnier said.
Unacceptable images: Sweden
He said the move did not mean the commission had opened a new formal investigation based on the EU’s Digital Services Act, which requires online platforms to do more to tackle illegal and harmful content.
X did not immediately respond to a request for comment when contacted by Reuters.
X’s Safety account said on Jan 4 that it removes all illegal content, including child sexual abuse material, on the platform and permanently suspends accounts involved. It said anyone using or prompting Grok to make illegal content would suffer the same consequences as if they uploaded illegal content.
Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson described the images as “a kind of sexualised violence” and said: “It’s distasteful, unacceptable, offensive.”
British Prime Minister Keir Starmer also called again on X to take urgent action, after a report from the Internet Watch Foundation said Grok was being used to generate sexualised images of children.
“It’s disgusting. And it’s not to be tolerated,” Mr Starmer told national radio network Greatest Hits Radio.
The Internet Watch Foundation, a British non-profit organisation focused on eradicating online child sexual abuse, said it had found criminal imagery of children aged between 11 and 13, which seemed to have been created by the use of Grok.
“Tools like Grok now risk bringing sexual AI imagery of children into the mainstream,” Ms Ngaire Alexander, head of the reporting hotline at the Internet Watch Foundation, said in a statement.
“That is unacceptable.” REUTERS
