- X’s Grok AI tool has created pornographic images of women and children
- Now, US Senators have told Apple and Google they must ban the apps
- Malaysia and Indonesia have already blocked the apps from use
In recent weeks it’s emerged that X’s built-in artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok is being actively used to generate explicit images of children and women without their consent, leading to calls for Apple and Google to remove both the Grok and X apps from their respective app stores.
Now, the pressure has been ramped up after a group of US Senators wrote a letter to Apple and Google demanding that they take action – and today the UK’s media watchdog Ofcom says it has launched an official investigation, too.
The US letter was signed by Senators Ron Wyden, Ben Ray Lujan and Edward Markey, and calls for the companies to “enforce your app stores’ terms of service,” as “X’s generation of these harmful and likely illegal depictions of women and children has shown complete disregard for your stores’ distribution terms.”
After detailing how Grok has been “modifying images to depict women being sexually abused, humiliated, hurt, and even killed” and how “Grok has reportedly created sexualized images of children,” the Senators pointed out that these actions violate the app store policies of both Apple and Google.
Google’s terms of service “prohibit users from creating, uploading, or distributing content that facilitates the exploitation or abuse of children,” the Senators say, “including prohibiting the portrayal of children in a manner that could result in the sexual exploitation of children.”
Apple, meanwhile, expressly bars “Overtly sexual or pornographic material.” The Senators allege that “Turning a blind eye to X’s egregious behavior would make a mockery of your moderation practices.”
The pressure on X and Musk grows
The group of US senators also pointed to both Apple’s and Google’s recent pushback against greater regulatory scrutiny of their app stores.
“Not taking action would undermine your claims in public and in court that your app stores offer a safer user experience than letting users download apps directly to their phones,” the Senators wrote, adding that “This principle has been core to your advocacy against legislative reforms to increase app store competition and your defenses to claims that your app stores abuse their market power through their payment systems.”
Apple and Google have proven that they can move quickly to ban apps, the Senators note. “Your companies quickly removed apps that allowed users to lawfully report immigration enforcement activities, like ICEBlock and Red Dot,” they argue. “Unlike Grok’s sickening content generation, these apps were not creating or hosting harmful or illegal content, and yet, based entirely on the [US Government’s] claims that they posed a risk to immigration enforcers, you removed them from your stores.”
The Senators say they hope that Apple and Google will “demonstrate a similar level of responsiveness and initiate swift action to remove the X and Grok apps from your app stores.”
Regardless of whether Apple and Google take action, X and Grok are facing increasing pressure around the world. The governments of both Indonesia and Malaysia recently blocked Grok in light of the image-generation controversy, and with legislators in the UK, European Union and India also closely scrutinizing the AI tool, they may not be the only countries to make a move.
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alexblake.techradar@gmail.com (Alex Blake)
