• by Laurie Sullivan , 2 hours ago

Sexually explicit AI-generated content based on user prompts and searches continues to surface across sites such as Grok, Elon Musk’s artificial intelligence chatbot developed by xAI, and Google's YouTube. 

The sexualized images of people -- including some minors -- on Grok and on X has caught the attention of governments in India and France, which accused the company on Friday of generating illegal sexual content without people’s consent.

While it’s not clear whether the images were bot-generated and posted, the French government flagged the incident as potentially violating the European Union’s Digital Services Act (DSA).

DSA regulation requires platforms to mitigate the risk of illegal content spreading, the country said in a statement.

In India, the IT ministry issued X a 72-hour ultimatum to remove obscene content generated by Grok after reports that the tool was being used to create non-consensual deepfakes of women and children.

“We appreciate you raising this,” Grok’s X account posted on Friday based on the acquisition that its AI bot altered images of minors. “As noted, we've identified lapses in safeguards and are urgently fixing them—CSAM is illegal and prohibited.”

In a post on X on January 1, Grok’s account published an apology, claiming to have “generated and shared an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user's prompt.”

The fact that AI tools can generate realistic images of minors such as these points to challenges with the technology that requires extra moderation and safeguards. The post, which was viewed 2.3 million times, added that it had “violated ethical standards” and was a “failure” in safeguards.

These failures not only occur across Musk’s platforms, but also Google’s. People on Reddit complained within the past week that YouTube has an adult content problem, after they searched on the platform and an explicit thumbnail served up of a naked woman wrapped in plastic.

These images on YouTube are visible even when not signed into the platform, reported Android Authority.