Am I Overly Sensitive to X (Twitter) Images?
August 28, 2024
X AI Creates Disturbing Images
The AI division of X, xAI, has produced a chatbot called Grok. Grok includes an image generator. Unlike ChatGPT and other AIs from major firms, Grok seems to have few guardrails. In fact, according to The Verge, “X’s New AI Image Generator Will Make Anything from Taylor Swift in Lingerie to Kamala Harris with a Gun.” Oh, if one asks Grok directly, it claims to have sensible guardrails and will even list a few. However, writes senior editor Adi Robertson:
“But these probably aren’t real rules, just likely-sounding predictive answers being generated on the fly. Asking multiple times will get you variations with different policies, some of which sound distinctly un-X-ish, like ‘be mindful of cultural sensitivities.’ (We’ve asked xAI if guardrails do exist, but the company hasn’t yet responded to a request for comment.) Grok’s text version will refuse to do things like help you make cocaine, a standard move for chatbots. But image prompts that would be immediately blocked on other services are fine by Grok.”
The article lists some very uncomfortable experimental images Grok has created and even shares a few. See the write-up if curious. We learn one X user found some frightening loopholes. When he told the AI he was working on medical or crime scene analysis, it allowed him to create some truly disturbing images. The write-up shares blurred versions of these. The same researcher says he got Grok to create child pornography (though he wisely does not reveal how). All this without a “Created with AI” watermark added by other major chatbots. Although he is aware of this issue, X owner Elon Musk characterizes this iteration of Grok as an “intermediate step” that allows users “to have some fun.” That is one way to put it. Robertson notes:
“Grok’s looseness is consistent with Musk’s disdain for standard AI and social media safety conventions, but the image generator is arriving at a particularly fraught moment. The European Commission is already investigating X for potential violations of the Digital Safety Act, which governs how very large online platforms moderate content, and it requested information earlier this year from X and other companies about mitigating AI-related risk. … The US has far broader speech protections and a liability shield for online services, and Musk’s ties with conservative figures may earn him some favors politically.”
Perhaps. But US legislators are working on ways to regulate deepfakes that impersonate others, particularly sexually explicit imagery. Combine that with UK regulator Ofcom’s upcoming enforcement of the OSA, and Musk may soon find a permissive Grok to be a lot less fun.
Cynthia Murrell, August 28, 2024
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[…] images were generated by xAI’s Grok AI tool, which is remarkably cavalier about infringing (or offensive) content. But some seem to have been old-school fan art. (Whether noncommercial fan art is fair use […]