Singer and television personality Peter Andre has issued a stark warning about the escalating dangers of artificial intelligence on social media platforms. His comments come in the wake of Love Island presenter Maya Jama discovering that AI had been used to create inappropriate 'deepfake' images of her.
The Alarming Discovery and a Celebrity Warning
Maya Jama, the 31-year-old host of ITV's Love Island, found that followers had utilised Elon Musk's AI chatbot, Grok, to generate fabricated bikini photos of her. This disturbing trend prompted Peter Andre to voice his concerns publicly. The 52-year-old 'Mysterious Girl' singer, a father of five, revealed in his column for new! magazine that he too has been a target of AI manipulation.
"I saw that Maya Jama was, of course, horrified after discovering fans had used AI to generate inappropriate images of her," Andre wrote. He described the current state of social media as far more perilous than in its early days, specifically citing the rise of AI. "This is the problem with social media now, and when it all started we didn’t know the dangers. I think even after we started to realise, it has become far more dangerous since the introduction of AI."
Public Outcry and Platform Accountability
Expressing her dismay on the platform X, where she has nearly 700,000 followers, Maya Jama directly addressed the AI tool. "Hey @grok, I do not authorise you to take, modify, or edit any photo of mine," she stated. She later shared that this was not her first experience, recalling a prior incident where photoshopped nude images, based on her Instagram photos, were circulated, which her own mother had sent to her worriedly.
Jama concluded, "The internet is scary and only getting worse," a sentiment echoing the growing alarm over AI-generated content. The situation prompted media regulator Ofcom to make "urgent contact" with X regarding the Grok tool. This followed reports from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) which found criminal imagery of children, apparently created using Grok, being shared on a dark web forum.
Political Repercussions and Calls for Action
The scandal has resonated in political circles, amplifying calls for stricter oversight. The Women and Equalities Committee of MPs announced they would stop using X in response. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall backed the regulator's urgent approach, and Downing Street indicated that "all options were on the table," including a potential boycott of the platform.
Peter Andre, who does not allow his younger children to use social media, expressed a cautious hope for the future. "I think the regulations will come in soon, we’ve just got to hope that changes really will be made," he said. An X safety account responded to media enquiries by stating they take action against illegal content and that prompting Grok to create it carries the same consequences as uploading it directly.
The incident underscores a critical and rapidly evolving challenge at the intersection of technology, celebrity culture, and online safety, putting pressure on both tech giants and lawmakers to establish effective safeguards.
