- xAI has silently turned off Grok image generation on X for free users. Users have been misusing the feature to undress women and children.
- Grok on X now says, "image generation and editing are currently limited to paying subscribers."
- X premium subscribers with a blue checkmark can still use image generation and continue to create non-consensual deepfakes.
Elon Musk’s xAI has turned off Grok’s image generation feature on X for free users, as a response to the ongoing backlash over the AI being used to create explicit images of minor and women without their consent. As of Friday morning, only paid subscribers of X have access to this feature.
After Enabling Abuse, X Makes Grok Image Generation a Paid Feature
According to a report by The Guardian, X has silently made the Grok image generation a paid feature. This means that anyone trying to tag Grok and asking it to undress someone, or manipulate an image, will now see this reply from the AI chatbot, “image generation and editing are currently limited to paying subscribers.“
Only paid X premium subscribers with a blue tick will be able to use Grok’s image generation capabilities. This will surely limit the misuse of Grok AI to morph images of women and children and show them in a revealing bikini. It has become a platform-wide abuse, as the AI does not require any consent from the original poster.
Many women have been calling out X for this digital abuse. The UK Government has recently told regulators to consider all options including banning the app effectively to curb this ongoing harassment of users. Earlier this week, xAI CEO Elon Musk also made a statement, “Anyone using Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if they upload illegal content.”
Many women on X are celebrating this as a victory. However, what puts me off about this is that Musk has essentially turned the online harassment into a paid luxury. The platform has still not implemented any guardrails on the AI itself. So subscribers can still undress anyone they like to using Grok’s image generation capabilities.
