The British government, one of the most vocal critics of the AI tool, called the adjustment a “vindication” but said a probe by its communications regulator would continue.
X’s announcement came shortly after the California attorney general said the state would investigate the “shocking” reports of non-consensual sexualised material generated by the AI model. Musk defended the product in an X post, saying it only generates images “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,” he said. “There may be times when adversarial hacking of Grok prompts does something unexpected. If that happens, we fix the bug immediately.”
Musk later said that in the United States, when users have an explicit-content setting enabled, Grok would allow for “upper body nudity of imaginary adult humans (not real ones).” The image would be consistent, he said, with what could be observed in an R-rated movie. However, on Thursday, the Grok app would still generate undressed images of real people.
“That is the de facto standard in America,” he said. “This will vary in other regions according to the laws on a country-by-country basis.”
Attorneys who work with victims of sexual cybercrime say that publishing non-consensual sexual images would be unlawful under the federal Take It Down Act as well as multiple state laws.
Several countries and regions have called for action or taken steps to respond, including Malaysia, India, Indonesia, France, Canada and the European Union.
This week in the United Kingdom, the communications regulator Ofcom announced it was launching a formal investigation into X following reports that Grok was being used to create and share “undressed images of people – which may amount to intimate image abuse or pornography – and sexualised images of children that may amount to child sexual abuse material”.
If Ofcom finds that the platform has broken the law, it can impose hefty fines – up to 10% of worldwide revenue or £18 million ($24 million), whichever is greater. Musk, in his post defending the product, said he was “not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok”.
Liz Kendall, Britain’s technology secretary, told Parliament this week that legislation passed last summer making it illegal to create nonconsensual intimate images in England and Wales would come into force “this week”.
An Ofcom spokesman said that while the agency “welcomed” X’s announcement, it would continue its investigation “round-the-clock to progress this and get answers into what went wrong and what’s being done to fix it”.
Sign up to Herald Premium Editor’s Picks, delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Editor-in-Chief Murray Kirkness picks the week’s best features, interviews and investigations. Sign up for Herald Premium here.
