The European Commission on Monday said it opened an investigation into Elon Musk‘s X over the spreading of sexually explicit material by the AI chatbot Grok.
The probe is being conducted under the European Union’s sweeping Digital Services Act (DSA) regulation.
“The new investigation will assess whether the company properly assessed and mitigated risks associated with the deployment of Grok’s functionalities into X in the EU,” the Commission, the EU’s executive arm, said in a statement.
“This includes risks related to the dissemination of illegal content in the EU, such as manipulated sexually explicit images, including content that may amount to child sexual abuse material.”
The Commission said the risks “seem to have materialised, exposing citizens in the EU to serious harm.”
“Deepfakes are a troubling, frontier issue that call for tailored, thoughtful responses,” U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy Sarah Rogers told CNBC.
“Erecting a ‘Great Firewall’ to ban X, or lobotomizing AI, is neither tailored nor thoughtful. We stand ready to work with the EU on better ideas.”
Grok came under fire this year after users were able to prompt the system to generate sexualized images of children and other individuals.
Earlier this month, Musk’s company said it had “implemented technological measures” to prevent the Grok account on X “from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing such as bikinis.” The company also limited image creation editing through Grok on X to paid subscribers. The standalone Grok app, which does not share images publicly, still allowed non-paying users to generate imagery of women and children.
European regulators have joined a growing list of authorities looking into Grok. The U.K., India, and Malaysia are among a number of other countries investigating the sexualized imagery generated by Grok.
X has been in the crosshairs of the European Commission under the DSA, which gives the regulator the ability to levy large fines on tech companies. The DSA is designed to regulate online platforms, their content, and behavior with consumers.
On Monday, the Commission said it is extending an investigation that began in 2023 into X and its recommendation system. In December, the Commission fined X 120 million euros ($142.3 million) for breaching its transparency obligations under the DSA.
– CNBC’s Lora Kolodny and Kai Nicol-Schwarz contributed to this report.
