LONDON, Jan 15 (Reuters) - Britain welcomed a U-turn by xAI to stop its Grok AI chatbot making non-consensual sexually explicit deepfakes, but said its investigation into how Elon Musk’s company ever allowed it to happen would continue.
Musk’s artificial intelligence company xAI late on Wednesday imposed restrictions on all Grok users, limiting image editing following global concerns from regulators.
“This is a welcome development,” Britain’s media regulator Ofcom said on Thursday.
“However, our formal investigation remains ongoing. We are working round the clock to progress this and get answers into what went wrong and what’s being done to fix it.”
Britain is one of a growing list of countries cracking down on explicit content generated by Grok, imposing bans and demanding safeguards in a global push to curb illegal material.
GOVERNMENT TOUTS ONLINE SAFETY ACT SUCCESS
xAI, owned by billionaire Musk, said it had implemented tech fixes to stop the Grok account on its X platform editing images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis.
It had previously limited the feature to paying users, but the change did nothing to quell criticism.
Britain’s Technology Secretary Liz Kendall claimed the U-turn as a victory in the government’s fight to rein in the powers of big tech.
“Our Online Safety Act is and always has been about keeping people safe on social media - especially children - and it has given us the tools to hold X to account in recent days,” she said.
Kendall, who said earlier this week that the Ofcom probe into X must not take months and months, added on Thursday that she would not rest until all social media platforms provided a service that is safe and age appropriate to users.
Separately Ofcom said on Thursday that Snapchat had “materially improved” its illegal content risk assessment, helping to protect the UK public.
CALIFORNIA DEMANDS ANSWERS AS CRITICISM MOUNTS
xAI said it had blocked users, based on their location, from generating images of people in revealing clothing in “jurisdictions where it’s illegal”. It did not identify those jurisdictions.
California joined the critics on Wednesday, when its governor and attorney general demanded answers from xAI after Musk said he was not aware of any “naked underage images” generated by Grok.
At first, Musk publicly laughed off the controversy, posting humorous emojis in response to users’ comments about the influx of sexualized photos.
More recently, X has said it treats reports of child sexual abuse material seriously and polices it vigorously.
The company is facing regulatory scrutiny around the world, from France to India.
On Thursday, the Philippines said it was moving to block Grok amid concerns about its ability to generate sexualised images, including content that could pose child safety risks.
(Reporting by Paul Sandle and Muvija M; Editing by Kate Holton and Louise Heavens)
