Downing Street declares war on Elon Musk's AI

LondonBritish Prime Minister Keir Starmer issued an unequivocal warning to Elon Musk on Monday night: if Musk is unable to control his artificial intelligence chatbot, Grok, the British government will do so "swiftly" and with the full force of the law. "If you profit from harm and abuse, you lose the right to self-regulate," he said. premier during a meeting with the Labour group in the House of Commons. It is, so far, Downing Street's toughest clash with the tycoon, who immediately accused London, via his social media, of "looking for any excuse" to exercise censorship.

Keir Starmer's threat comes hours after the British government confirmed that this week the UK will make it a criminal offense to create intimate images without consent, including those generated with artificial intelligence. Technology Minister Liz Kendall announced in Parliament that the development and distribution of tools specifically designed to create this type of material, which she described as "repugnant," will also be prohibited. Until now, it was only illegal to share these images without the consent of the person depicted.

In addition, the government will use the new Crime and Public Safety Bill, currently going through Parliament, to criminalize so-called "nude image" apps, widely used to generate AI-generated sexual images.

Starmer's threat and the minister's announcement coincided with the opening of a formal investigation by Ofcom—the British media regulator—against Grok, after detecting its use in generating thousands of sexualized images of women without their consent, as well as extreme content that is disturbing. The watchdog has explicitly warned of the risk of "abuse of intimate images" and child sexual exploitation material.

Ofcom has recalled that, under theOnline Safety ActThe UK government can ask the courts to block the X platform in the UK and impose fines of up to £18 million or 10% of the group's global revenue if it concludes that X has not done enough to prevent illegal content or to stop minors from accessing adult material. The investigation will examine six key areas, including risk assessments, the speed of image removal, and the potential exposure of children to the content. London's pressure is also international. Malaysia and Indonesia became the first countries in the world to block Grok this weekend, citing the same risks. The Trump administration has already reacted from Washington: Under Secretary of State Sarah Rogers accused the UK of considering "a Russian-style X ban." Beyond Elon Musk's comment, X has not officially responded, although it had previously stated that it takes action against illegal content. Last week, the company partially restricted access to its artificial intelligence to paying subscribers, a move that hasn't prevented public outrage or halted the regulatory push. This push only came after it was discovered that Grok was sharing its results on the X network. However, the problem for lawmakers is that the pace of advances in artificial intelligence is infinitely faster than the capacity of democratic powers to regulate its capabilities.