By Hadas Gold, NCS
(NCS) — Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot has restricted some of its Imagine image generation options to paid X subscribers, days after worldwide uproar over the AI device responded to consumer requests by “digitally undressing” folks, together with youngsters.
The change seems to have occurred between Thursday and Friday. Grok’s X account responds to non-subscriber requests for pictures with the message: “Image generation and editing are currently limited to paying subscribers,” and features a hyperlink to subscribe.
But the restriction applies to only one manner X customers can work together with Grok. An “edit image” button on pictures uploaded to X permits any consumer to use Grok and edit the image. And image and video generation continues to be supplied without cost by Grok’s standalone web site and app. The restriction seems to solely apply to the characteristic the place customers tag Grok in an X put up with a request, which Grok then complies with in a public X put up.
NCS beforehand reported that within the weeks main up to the pattern exploding on X, Musk had expressed frustration over Grok Imagine’s guardrails in a gathering at xAi. Three key staffers of xAI’s security staff, together with its head of product security, additionally left the corporate within the weeks main up to the controversy.
Officials within the United Kingdom, European Union, Malaysia and India have expressed issues about Grok’s guardrails and the way it leads to what many think about to be deepfake porn.
A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer slammed the most recent transfer by X, saying it “simply turns an AI feature that allows the creation of unlawful images into a premium service,” in accordance to the BBC.
In the United States, a bunch of senators sent a letter to Apple and Google, urging them to take away X and Grok from their app shops for violating the shop’s distribution phrases.
While the controversy over the digital undressing was at its peak on X, the positioning’s leaders — together with Musk and head of product Nikita Bier — boasted that X was experiencing some of its highest charges of engagement ever.
xAI additionally announced this week it had accomplished its Series E funding spherical, exceeding the $15 billion focused spherical dimension and elevating $20 billion from buyers.
A spokesperson for X didn’t instantly reply to NCS’s request for remark.
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