Image generation paywalled on X after ministers and regulators start asking awkward questions

Grok has yanked its image-generation toy out of the hands of most X users after the UK government openly weighed a ban over the AI feature that "undressed" people on command.

In replies posted to users on X, seen by The Register, the Grok account confirmed that "image generation and editing are currently limited to paying subscribers," a change from the previous setup in which anyone could summon the system by tagging it in a post and asking for a picture.

That access helped fuel a grim trend: users uploading photos of clothed people – sometimes underage – and instructing the bot to remove their clothes or pose them in sexualized ways. Grok complied.

The rollback comes as governments openly float the idea of banning or boycotting X altogether if it fails to rein in the abuse enabled by its AI tools. In the UK, screenshots of Grok-generated images quickly drew the ...