Grok scandal: EU investigates X’s role in spreading sexualized deepfakes
17 February 12:14
The European privacy regulator has launched a “large-scale” investigation into Elon Musk’s X over AI-generated sexualized images without consent, marking yet another sign of heightened regulatory scrutiny of the Grok chatbot integrated into the social network.
This was reported by the Financial Times, according to "Komersant Ukrainian".
The Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC), which is responsible for enforcing the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), late Monday evening that it had launched an investigation into the creation and publication of “potentially harmful” sexualized images by Grok that contained or involved the processing of EU user data.
The Grok chatbot is integrated into X feeds and was developed by Musk’s AI startup xAI, which acquired X last year. Earlier this month, xAI merged with Musk’s rocket company SpaceX, creating a giant valued at $1.5 trillion.
The investigation is the latest in a series of probes by authorities in various countries targeting X after Grok was used in early January to generate thousands of sexualized deepfakes featuring images of women. This sparked widespread outrage among users, security experts, and politicians.
“The DPC has been in contact with [X] since reports first appeared in the media several weeks ago about the alleged ability of X users to force the @Grok account on X to generate sexualized images of real people, including children,” DPC Deputy Commissioner Graham Doyle said on Monday.
He added that the commission “has launched a large-scale investigation that will examine [X]’s compliance with certain basic GDPR obligations in relation to these circumstances.”
It should be noted that Elon Musk’s startup xAI has introduced a number of restrictions on the image generation feature in the Grok chatbot on the X social network after widespread outrage over the use of AI to create and publish sexualized images.
