Grok generates photorealistic racist images of football players
Grok's new photorealistic image generation feature reportedly enabled users to create racist images of football players and managers starting in December 2024. Signify reported a sharp increase in online abuse complaints, and experts warned the problem will worsen as photorealistic synthetic media becomes more prevalent.
What happened
Signify, an organisation that tracks online hate in sports, reported seeing a sharp increase in racist image reports since Grok strengthened its image generation capabilities in December 2024. Examples include an image depicting a Black player picking cotton, another showing the same player eating a banana surrounded by monkeys in a forest, and images of players and managers depicted meeting controversial historical figures such as Adolf Hitler, Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.
The new Aurora text-to-image feature created photorealistic AI images from simple user prompts. Users circumvent Grok's guidelines by 'jailbreaking', including describing physical features rather than naming individuals.
Reported impact
Athletes targeted by these images face personal harm and broader implications for their mental health and public perception. Signify warned that photorealistic AI will make such outputs far more prevalent and that the normalisation of this imagery can contribute to a toxic environment in sports.
The Premier League received more than 1,500 racist abuse reports in 2024 and has a dedicated team to find and report racist abuse directed towards athletes.
Index analysis
Unlike other AI tools with stricter guidelines, Grok's system has been shown to be easily manipulated or jailbroken by users to generate inappropriate images.
Classification
Sources and evidence
Sources not yet published
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