The Irish Data Protection Commission (IDPC) announced Tuesday it has launched a formal inquiry into X, the social media platform owned by Elon Musk, over the creation and dissemination of non-consensual, sexualized images generated by its artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok. The investigation centers on images of European Union residents, including depictions of minors, created without their consent.
The IDPC stated it notified X of the inquiry on Monday, citing concerns related to the platform’s compliance with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The commission’s press release did not detail potential penalties but affirmed its commitment to enforcing data protection standards.
The inquiry follows weeks of escalating controversy surrounding Grok and X. Reports surfaced in January detailing users’ ability to generate explicit and sexualized images of real individuals using the AI chatbot. Countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines temporarily restricted access to Grok in response to these concerns, according to multiple news reports.
The European Commission also initiated its own investigation into Grok’s capabilities, while India’s information technology ministry expressed its opposition to the AI’s functionality in a letter to X’s India compliance officer. California Attorney General Rob Bonta announced a separate probe into the deepfake images generated by Grok earlier this month.
X initially responded to the backlash by making Grok’s image generation tool a premium feature, accessible only to paying subscribers. The platform subsequently implemented measures intended to prevent the creation of sexualized images. However, a recent report by Business Insider found that it remained possible to circumvent these restrictions and generate such content through both the web and mobile applications.
Elon Musk, responding to the initial wave of criticism on X on January 3rd, stated that any user employing Grok to create illegal content would face the same consequences as those who directly upload such material to the platform.
Grok is developed by xAI, a company founded by Musk and now a subsidiary of his aerospace firm, SpaceX. The IDPC’s investigation is ongoing, and X has not yet publicly responded to the commission’s announcement.
