California attorney general investigates Musk’s Grok AI over lewd fake images

California authorities have announced an investigation into the output of Elon Musk’s Grok.The state’s top attorney said Grok, an AI tool and image generator made by Musk’s company xAI, appears to be making it easy to harass women and girls with deepfake images on X and elsewhere online.“The avalanche of reports detailing the non-consensual, sexually explicit material that xAI has produced and posted online in recent weeks is shocking,” California attorney general, Rob Bonta, said in a statement. “I urge xAI to take immediate action to ensure this goes no further.”Bonta’s office is investigating whether and how xAI violated state law.On X, California governor Gavin Newsom called for an investigation into “Grok’s disgusting spread of child porn on this website”.“xAI’s decision to create and host a breeding ground for predators to spread nonconsensual sexually explicit AI deepfakes, including images that digitally undress children, is vile,” read a tweet from his official account.The same day, Musk denied that Grok was being used to spread nude images of minors. He wrote on X: “I not aware of any naked underage images generated by Grok. Literally zero.”Nearly two weeks ago, the AI tool itself said it had generated “images depicting minors in minimal clothing” when questioned by users.There has been a flood of reports in recent weeks that Grok users are taking pictures of women or children found online and using the xAI bot to undress them virtually, Bonta said.Grok’s image generation models include what xAI promotes as a “spicy mode” for generating and editing sexual material, including pictures, according to the attorney general’s office.Last week, an analysis of more than 20,000 Grok-generated images by Paris non-profit AI Forensics found that more than half depicted “individuals in minimal attire” – most of them women, and 2% appearing to be under-18s.Images generated by Grok are being used to harass public figures as well as typical social media users, according to Bonta.Three Democratic US senators called on Apple and Google to remove the apps for X and Grok from their app stores last week in response to the flood of sexualized images. The two tech giants have remained mum in response.xAI has faced global backlash over the sexualized deepfake images. Indonesia on Saturday became the first country to block access to Grok entirely, with neighboring Malaysia following on Sunday. India said on Sunday that X had removed thousands of posts and hundreds of user accounts in response to its complaints.Britain’s Ofcom media regulator said on Monday it was opening an inquiry into whether X failed to comply with UK law over the sexual images. France’s commissioner for children, Sarah El Hairy, said on Tuesday she had referred Grok’s generated images to French prosecutors, the Arcom media regulator and the European Union.The European Commission, which acts as the EU’s digital watchdog, has ordered X to retain all internal documents and data related to Grok until the end of 2026 in response to the uproar.