Dan Morris: Grok outrage making us ask if social media is worth it
And so, the seedy and sadistic saga of social media continues. In the latest chapter of humanity’s greatest failed experiment, X’s Grok AI chatbot is under global fire after allowing users to create sexualised images of real women and children.
An investigation by Reuters news agency found that over a single 10-minute period on January 2, X users asked Grok to digitally edit photographs of people so that they would appear to be wearing bikinis at least 102 times. More explicit requests have also been made, and they have been fulfilled.
For how long Grok has allowed photographs to be manipulated in this way, no one has said. Yet this recent spike in sexualised deepfaking via the bot has prompted strong reactions from various world leaders, including our own Prime Minister.
“If X cannot control Grok, we will – and we’ll do it fast because if you profit from harm and abuse, you lose the right to self-regulate,” said the PM on Monday.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Social media is The Devil’s work. And now, things have gone too far.
Exploitation of platforms for verbal bullying was bad enough. This is skin-crawlingly abhorrent, and if social media companies cannot guarantee with 100 per cent surety that their platforms and the AI facilities therein cannot be used to sexualise photographs of children, their platforms should be shut down and their businesses closed.
The stakes are simply too high. My daughter’s mother and I have always operated a policy that no photographs of our child will ever be posted on social media. Sadly, we felt this to be a sensible precaution against those in the online world with nefarious intent. I hate being right all the time.
What has made me more sick to my stomach than anything is the thought that the tools to carry out such a disgusting practice have been ‘shop front’ and readily available on one of the internet’s most famous platforms, not just consigned to the darkest corners of the web.
Initially, xAI said it had put restrictions in place that meant only paid subscribers were able to use image generation and editing features on the platform.
X said it takes action against illegal content on the platform, including child sexual abuse material, by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working with local governments and law enforcement as necessary.
Elon Musk also added that anyone using Grok to make illegal content would suffer the same consequences as if they uploaded illegal content.
Later this week, an announcement on X read: “We have implemented technological measures to prevent the Grok account from allowing the editing of images of real people in revealing clothing.”
I am not a technology expert, but if you’re telling me that no one checked whether or not it was possible to use this thing to create a sexualised image of a child before it was rolled out, then they should have.
While Ofcom’s investigation into whether X has “failed to comply with its legal obligations under the Online Safety Act” continues, law changes have been brought in to curb the practice of heinous image manipulation at its source. This week, creating non-consensual intimate images with artificial intelligence became a criminal offence in the UK.
Technology secretary Liz Kendall has clarified that this includes requesting the creation of the images. In the face of pathetic criticisms relating to a supposed impact on the freedom of speech, Ms Kendall said that bringing this change in law forward was “about tackling violence against women and girls, upholding basic British values of decency and respect and ensuring the standards we expect offline are upheld online”. This is a positive step, but it does make you wonder why such a law wasn’t brought in earlier; i.e years ago, when AI first became part of our lives.
For those like me who have long questioned the benefits vs banes of social media, this whole disgusting debacle is perhaps the strongest sign yet that with the development of this side of the digital world, we have opened a Pandora’s Box that has eroded away at our safety, security and freedom from abuse.
New tools have been given to sick and sinister individuals who would prey on the vulnerable, and new avenues have been created through which they can work their evil.
It’s time the whole world takes a look at the big picture. Is social media really worth having if it’s being used for things like this?
