Continuing X’s very bad day, at last in terms of regulatory action, the U.K. Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) has today announced a formal investigation into X and xAI in relation to the processing of personal data for X’s Grok AI chatbot, as well as the use of Grok to produce harmful, sexualized image and video content.

Early in January, the Grok nudification trend on X saw hundreds of thousands of sexualized images of people being shared publicly in the app every day, which sparked authorities in various regions to implement restrictions on Grok, while others called on X to remove this functionality, and stop the misuse of its AI tool.

Which X owner Elon Musk initially refused, instead claiming that the action was politically motivated, and intended to silence X specifically because of its “free speech” approach. Musk essentially claimed that other various AI tools enabled similar nudification functionality, and that Grok should not be specifically targeted in this respect. Yet, the scale and presence of X does make it a bigger focus, while other apps are indeed under investigation over similar concerns.

And, really, why would you oppose this? For what reason could you make a stand here, and defend the right to create unauthorized nudes of people?

X eventually did move to restrict the option, which seems to have largely stopped the Grok nudification trend, though investigations have found that Grok will still produce sexualized depictions of people when prompted.

Which likely doesn’t bode well for X, as ICO looks to glean more insight into its operations.  

As per ICO:

“During this investigation, the ICO will assess XIUC and X.AI’s compliance with UK data protection law in respect of the processing performed by the Grok AI system. The ICO has not reached a view on whether there is sufficient evidence of an infringement of data protection law by X.AI or XIUC. If we find there is sufficient evidence of such an infringement, we will consider any representations we receive before taking a final decision as to whether data protection law has been infringed and what action, if any, is appropriate.”

So X could be facing yet another significant penalty in Europe, while French authorities also raided the local X office in Paris as part of their own investigation into the same.

So there could be a flood of fines coming Elon’s way. And with X now a part of SpaceX following this week’s merger, and SpaceX looking to launch an IPO later this year, the controversies stemming from X could cause more headaches for the larger business moving forward.

But xAI, in particular, needs X as a data source to power its AI models. Elon’s view is that each of these businesses will complement one another, with X feeding data into xAI, and xAI helping to drive efficiencies at SpaceX, while also aligning with his vision to create AI data centers in space.

But if X is going to be a source of major controversy and concern, I wonder whether Musk would have been better off keeping his business interests separate.

I mean, how are SpaceX investors going to take the news that they had to delay the latest test flight to Mars because X has been fined again due to users generating nude images of the latest pop singer?

Seems like a pretty big conflict, but if you buy into an Elon Musk company, that probably also comes with the territory.