UPDATE: Grok turns off AI image generator for most users

The AI tool has switched off the image creation function after widespread criticism that the platform generating nonconsensual deepfake images of women and underage girls.

“Image generation and editing are currently limited to paying subscribers,” Grok posted on X, which is also owned by Elon Musk. It means that the vast majority of Grok users cannot create images using the tool and those that do have their full details stored by the company.

Those who are not subscribers are reportedly still able to use Grok to edit images on its separate app and website, the BBC said.

Elon Musk could now face regulatory action in countries like the UK, with Prime Minister Keir Starmer stating this week that a de facto ban of X should be considered, as reported by The Guardian, and that the country’s communications regulator Ofcom has the government’s support to take action.

The news about Grok came amid xAI announcing it was successful in raising US$20 billion in its latest funding round on Tuesday.

The AI company said the Series E funding round surpassed its $15 billion target and credited Grok’s image-generation abilities as an important asset to gaining investment.

“Our frontier language models are built on the best-in-class training infrastructure powered by Colossus. xAI has pushed reinforcement learning training to unprecedented levels, refining Grok’s intelligence, reasoning and agency using pretraining-scale compute,” the company said.

It added: “Grok 5 is currently in training and we are focused on launching innovative new consumer and enterprise products that harness the power of Grok, Colossus and X to transform how we live, work and play.”

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