By Michaela Gordoni
Right after X introduced an explicit AI chatbot that strips, it announced “kid-friendly” app, Baby Grok…but are we buying it?
“We’re going to make Baby Grok @xAI, an app dedicated to kid-friendly content,” X owner Elon Musk shared on July 19.
The app is a simplified version of its Grok chatbot, supposedly meant to be “safe and educational,” The Christian Post reported.
“Fresh off X’s launch of a ‘NSFW’ [not safe for work] AI chatbot that children can access is a ridiculous suggestion that X will launch a supposedly child-friendly app,” Haley McNamara, National Center on Sexual Exploitation’s senior vice president of strategic initiatives and programs, said.
“X has no track record whatsoever of prioritizing child safety and should halt any plans to court children,” she added.
Its explicit AI companion, Ani, is designed to be sexually suggestive when a user interacts with it. It has no age verification system, so anyone can access it.
“X allows pornography on its platform, which provides a foundation for sexually exploitative content, child sexual abuse material, sex trafficking and other nonconsensual content to flourish,” McNamara continued. “Is X even taking action to prevent children from accessing pornography on its site?”
Grok has engaged in antisemitic hate speech promoting Hitler, initiated sexual conversations, and in one account, even detailed how it would rape a user, MSNBC reported. This is the same platform that’s being scaled down for kids.
NCOSE says X cannot be trusted to produce any product designed for children and should remove porn on its platform and get rid of Ani.
Related: X Rolls Out Disgusting NSFW Chatbot That Sexualizes Children
Grok does have a kids mode, but it does next to nothing to prevent kids from accessing Ani. It begs the question: what’s the point of kids mode, then?
Last week, X said it would comply with the UK’s Online Safety Act and review email addresses and contact books of users under the age of 18 to help prevent them from looking at adult content on the platform.
According to Ireland’s media regulators, X was previously not complying with the act.
“Based on an initial review of the X platform, we cannot see evidence of measures taken to comply with this age assurance requirement,” a spokesperson for Ireland’s media regulator Coimisiún na Meán said.
If X doesn’t provide the information, the regulators will instigate action against the platform.
X’s announcement has other safety groups concerned.
“Elon Musk’s plans to launch a child-focused version of Grok will cause alarm across civil society, with growing evidence about the risks posed by persuasive design choices in AI chatbots, a lack of effective safeguarding in most major industry models, and no clear strategy to prevent hallucinations,” said Andy Burrows, CEO of Molly Rose Foundation, an organization founded by the parents of a teen who died by suicide after exposure to harmful content on social platforms.
Burrows added, “The lack of regulation will mean the rollout of badly designed products will go effectively unchecked.”
Did anyone ask X for Baby Grok? It certainly wasn’t parents.
Read Next: X Introduces 12+ Explicit AI Chatbot Made to ‘Go Full Erotica’
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