Just days after a global backlash erupted over Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok generating sexualized deepfakes of women and children, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the Pentagon will embrace the technology.

Hegseth said Monday that Grok will soon be deployed on “every unclassified and classified network” throughout the department. U.S. officials are endorsing the technology even as governments around the world have condemned it.

Rising alarm from disparate nations points to the nightmarish potential of nudification apps that use artificial intelligence to generate sexually explicit deepfake images.

Nudification requests

The problem emerged after the launch last year of Grok Imagine, an AI image generator that allows users to create videos and pictures by typing in text prompts. It includes a so-called “spicy mode” that can generate adult content.

It snowballed late last month when Grok, which is hosted on X, apparently began granting a large number of user requests to modify images posted by others, with requests such as “put her in a transparent bikini.”

The problem was amplified both because Musk pitches his chatbot as an edgier alternative with fewer safeguards than rivals, and because Grok’s images are publicly visible, and can therefore be easily spread.

Musk’s response

In apparent response to the outrage, Grok said it was limiting image generation and editing features to paying subscribers.

On Friday, the chatbot was responding to image altering requests with the message: “Image generation and editing are currently limited to paying subscribers. You can subscribe to unlock these features.”

It was only granting publicly visible requests from X users with blue checkmarks given to premium subscribers who pay $8 a month for extra features.

On Tuesday, The Associated Press confirmed free users could still use the image editing tool on X by clicking the “Edit image” button that appears on every image posted to the platform instead of tagging Grok with a request. The standalone Grok website and app were also still granting image editing requests on Tuesday.

Musk’s artificial intelligence company, xAI, has been responding to requests for comment with the automated response, “Legacy Media Lies.”