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It will refuse to produce anything illegal: Elon Musk rails against Grok
backlash, but UK Prime Minister says were not going to back down

Date:
Wed, 14 Jan 2026 19:24:33 +0000

Description:
X CEO Elon Musk disputes image generation charges leveled at Grok AI.

FULL STORY
======================================================================
 Elon Musk defends Grok AI
 Insists it never created certain kinds of images
 The UK is not done investigating the platform

Elon Musk said that he's aware of "literally zero" naked underage images
generated by Grok AI, in a Wednesday post on X. It's the first public comment
beyond emojis the X CEO has made on the controversy, though it may do little
to satisfy critics.

Grok AI ran into trouble last week after Reuters reported that the Grok AI
platform, which is accessible separately and through  X, was "flooding" X 
with "sexualized photos of women and minors." It's not news that Grok can
generate racy images from prompts. Musk has posted his share of idealized
images of women in bustiers, but these allegations go further. 

In the report, Reuters recounted the story of a woman whose photo with her 
cat was transformed by a Grok prompt of an image of her in a tiny bikini.
There are also claims that Grok is generating images of sexualized minors. 

The report and growing concern led to Grok AI being banned in Malaysia and
Indonesia, and the UK's OFCOM launching an investigation into X . X and Musk
never directly addressed the allegations (until now), but it already took
steps to staunch the flow of such images. Image generation has, for instance,
been put behind the Grok AI paywall (an action that some say does little to
address the problem). And The Telegraph reported that Grok AI will ignore
requests to create these kinds of images. 

Musk's comments (below), though, appear to argue against a never leveled
charge: the creation of nude imagery of minors: 

 "[I'm] not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally
zero.

"Obviously, Grok does not spontaneously generate images, it does so only
according to user requests. 

"When asked to generate images, it will refuse to produce anything illegal,
as the operating principle for Grok is to obey the laws of any given country
or state. 

"There may be times when adversarial hacking of Grok prompts does something
unexpected. If that happens, we fix the bug immediately."

Musk is also making a point that is true of virtually all generative AI
platforms: they do not generate imagery without a prompt. Users are writing
the prompts and asking Grok to remove clothing and replace it with bikinis. 

Musk's statement about the refusal to create illegal imagery aligns with
previous statements Musk has made on free speech: his platforms will follow
the law, and he added in a 2022  X post , "I am against censorship that goes
far beyond the law." 

That last bit is perhaps why Grok AI has run afoul of some commonly 
understood content standards. Grok AI is generally a platform that will
happily flout intellectual property laws. In general, it has a snarkier
personality and is more open to a wider variety of prompts. Though with the
realization that Grok AI perhaps didn't know where to draw the line, that
stance is now clearly changing. 

Is it changing fast enough? Trust but verify 

UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer previously called Grok AI "disgusting," 
and though clearly pleased that Grok AI has taken measures to stop the flow 
of these images, he, according to the BBC, retained a hard line. 

"If so, that is welcome, but we're not going to back down, and they must act.
We will take the necessary measures. We will strengthen existing laws and
prepare for legislation if it needs to go further, and Ofcom will continue 
its independent investigation." 

It's unlikely that we'll hear a more in-depth response from Musk, whose last
point is that, perhaps, some of what we saw was due to "adversarial hacking"
that leads to "something unexpected". In other words, bugs that are easily
fixed. 

This week hasn't been all bad news for X and Grok AI. Even as other countries
are investigating and banning X and its AI platform, the US Department of
Defense announced a plan to integrate Grok AI into its own networks . That
should be... interesting. 

======================================================================
Link to news story:
https://www.techradar.com/ai-platforms-assistants/it-will-refuse-to-produce-an
ything-illegal-elon-musk-rails-against-grok-backlash-but-uk-prime-minister-say
s-were-not-going-to-back-down

$$
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