If, for some reason, any of my readers still have an X (Twitter) account, they might have noticed the new capabilities of Grok, the X A.I. model. On the first release of this new X-rated update, the abilities were available to all X users. These capabilities included being able to request Grok place ANYONE in a bikini or undress them as long as they had a reference photo, a new animated chat bot made explicitly for sexual conversation, and the continued tendency for Grok to sexualize Elon Musk’s, the owner of X, perceived enemies.
This problem reached a head when it was realized that Grok was making sexual content of minors. This included making images of one of the mothers of Musk’s children as a minor into sexual content. Ashley St. Clair, who was, at the time, a right-wing influencer and is the mother of Musk’s 13th child, came out about photos of her as young as 14 being undressed by Grok. St. Clair, who has recently turned away from the right as a result, has filed a lawsuit against X A.I. and Elon Musk as a result.
While it may seem like this is a one-off incident where Musk had one of his enemies targeted by his fans, it isn’t. These photos were created as a result of Musk’s changes to Grok, but seem to have been made without care for who they were depicting. Celebrities, public figures, and regular people alike had photos of them undressed without care for their consent or age. This isn’t the first time a scandal like this has come to the public eye.
In 2024, A.I.-generated pornography of Taylor Swift was spread around on X, garnering tens of millions of views. These images were violent and meant to humiliate Swift. While these images were eventually taken down, the damage had already been done. No one deserves to have images of them in sexual positions, real or not, spread around the internet without their consent. The fact that this is not the first time that Musk’s X has been involved in A.I. pornography scandals is not surprising, for many reasons, but mainly because many of these A.I. models have been created on training data that itself contains pornography, both legal and depicting children.
One of the most significant data sets used to train A.I. models, including Stable Diffusion, contain hundreds of pieces of child pornography and child sexual abuse materials (CSAM). These models can create child porn because they are trained on it. This is a problem that is ingrained in the source of these models. It is not as simple as removing the data from the models, because they have already taken the data and incorporated it into how they function. Collectively, we know very little about how these models function and if it is even possible to remove data completely.
While we continue to be in the dark about the ability to properly remove data, the fact that these models are very easy to manipulate into breaking their own restrictions means that it is borderline impossible to restrict the creation of pornographic material completely. That is, if these companies ever feel the desire to make these changes. When Musk was confronted with the fact that Grok was creating CSAM, he didn’t remove the ability for Grok to alter existing images, instead just placing the ability behind a paywall. He saw child pornography not as a morally unforgivable “mistake” to be fixed, but as a way to make more money.
The people in charge of these A.I. models are not going to make any actual moves to make them safer or even slightly less exploitative. This is the time for the government to step in. While it is highly unlikely that the federal government will regulate A.I. any time soon, you can demand your local representatives to take action. You can refuse to use these so-called “tools” so they no longer have your interactions to use to “better” the models. A.I. image generation has no place in a proper society. There is no use beyond creating things that one is either too lazy to bother creating themself or creating things that others have decided they don’t want out there. A.I. remains a soulless, morally reprehensible machine that only serves to make those with all of the money richer off of the backs of our suffering. The next time you consider using some A.I. image generator or another to turn yourself into the simulacrum of a Studio Ghibli character, remember that it helps to create childhood images of yourself turned into pornography for the worst of humanity to enjoy.
