Musk's AI chatbot faces global backlash over sexualized images of women
and children
[January 07, 2026] By
KELVIN CHAN
LONDON (AP) — Elon Musk's AI chatbot Grok is facing a backlash from
governments around the world after a recent surge in sexualized images
of women and children generated without consent by the artificial
intelligence-powered tool.
On Tuesday, Britain's top technology official demanded that Musk's
social media platform X take urgent action while a Polish lawmaker cited
it as a reason to enact digital safety laws.
The European Union's executive arm has denounced Grok while officials
and regulators in France, India, Malaysia and Brazil have condemned the
platform and called for investigations.
Rising alarm from disparate nations points to the nightmarish potential
of nudification apps that use artificial intelligence to generate
sexually explicit deepfake images.
Here’s a closer look:
Image generation
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. As of Tuesday, Grok users could still generate
images of women using requests such as, “put her in a transparent
bikini.”
The problem is amplified both because Musk pitches his chatbot as an
edgier alternative to rivals with more safeguards, and because Grok's
images are publicly visible, and can therefore be easily spread.
Nonprofit group AI Forensics said in a report that it analyzed 20,000
images generated by Grok between Dec. 25 and Jan. 1 and found that 2%
depicted a person who appeared to be 18 or younger, including 30 of
young or very young women or girls, in bikinis or transparent clothes.
Musk response
Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, responded to a request for
comment with the automated response, “Legacy Media Lies”.
However, X did not deny that the troublesome content generated through
Grok exists. Yet it still claimed in a post on its Safety account, that
it takes action against illegal content, including child sexual abuse
material, “by removing it, permanently suspending accounts, and working
with local governments and law enforcement as necessary."
The platform also repeated a comment from Musk, who said, “Anyone using
Grok to make illegal content will suffer the same consequences as if
they upload illegal content.”
A growing list of countries are demanding that Musk does more to rein in
explicit or abusive content.
Britain
X must “urgently” deal with the problem, Technology Secretary Liz
Kendall said Tuesday, adding that she supported additional scrutiny from
the U.K.’s communications regulator, Ofcom.
Kendall said the content is “absolutely appalling, and unacceptable in
decent society."
“We cannot and will not allow the proliferation of these demeaning and
degrading images, which are disproportionately aimed at women and
girls."
Ofcom said Monday it has made “urgent contact” with X.
“We are aware of serious concerns raised about a feature on Grok on X
that produces undressed images of people and sexualised images of
children,” the watchdog said.
The watchdog said it contacted both X and xAI to understand what steps
it has taken to comply with British regulations.
Under the U.K.’s Online Safety Act, social media platforms must prevent
and remove child sexual abuse material when they become aware of it.
Poland
A Polish lawmaker used Grok on Tuesday as a reason for national digital
safety legislation that would beef up protections for minors and make it
easier for authorities to remove content.
In an online video, Wlodzimierz Czarzasty, speaker of the parliament,
said he wanted to make himself a target of Grok to highlight the
problem, as well as appeal to Poland’s president for support of the
legislation.
“Grok lately is stripping people. It is undressing women, men and
children. We feel bad about it. I would, honestly, almost want this Grok
to also undress me,” he said.
[to top of second column] |
Workers install lighting on an "X" sign atop the company
headquarters, formerly known as Twitter, in downtown San Francisco,
July 28, 2023. (AP Photo/Noah Berger, File)
 European Union
The bloc's executive arm is “well aware” that Grok is being used to
for “explicit sexual content with some output generated with
child-like images,” European Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier
said
“This is not spicy. This is illegal. This is appalling. This is
disgusting. This is how we see it, and this has no place in Europe.
This is not the first time that Grok is generating such output," he
told reporters Monday.
After Grok spread Holocaust-denial content last
year, according to Regnier, the Commission sought more information
from Musk’s social media platform X. The response from X is
currently being analyzed, he said.
France
The Paris prosecutor's office said it's widening an ongoing
investigation of X to include sexually explicit deepfakes after
officials received complaints from lawmakers.
Three government ministers alerted prosecutors to “manifestly
illegal content" generated by Grok and posted on X, according to a
government statement last week.
The government also flagged problems with country's communications
regulator over possible breaches of the EU's Digital Services Act.
“The internet is neither a lawless zone nor a zone of impunity:
sexual offenses committed online constitute criminal offenses in
their own right and fall fully under the law, just as those
committed offline,” the government said.
India
The Indian government on Friday issued an ultimatum to X, demanding
that it take down all “unlawful content" and take action against
offending users. The country's Ministry of Electronics and
Information Technology also ordered the company to review Grok's
"technical and governance framework" and file a report on actions
taken.
The ministry accused Grok of “gross misuse” of AI and serious
failures of its safeguards and enforcement by allowing the
generation and sharing of ”obscene images or videos of women in
derogatory or vulgar manner in order to indecently denigrate them."
The ministry warned failure to comply by the 72-hour deadline would
expose the company to bigger legal problems, but the deadline passed
with no public update from India.
Malaysia
The Malaysian communications watchdog said Saturday it was
investigating X users who violated laws prohibiting spreading
“grossly offensive, obscene or indecent content.”
The Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission said it's
also investigating online harms on X, and would summon a company
representative.
The watchdog said it took note of public complaints about X's AI
tools being used to digitally manipulate “images of women and minors
to produce indecent, grossly offensive, or otherwise harmful
content.”
Brazil
Lawmaker Erika Hilton said she reported Grok and X to the Brazilian
federal public prosecutor’s office and the country's data protection
watchdog.
In a social media post, she accused both of of generating, then
publishing sexualized images of women and children without consent.
She said X's AI functions should be disabled until an investigation
has been carried out.
Hilton, one of Brazil's first transgender lawmakers, decried how
users could get Grok to digitally alter any published photo,
including “swapping the clothes of women and girls for bikinis or
making them suggestive and erotic.”
“The right to one’s image is individual; it cannot be transferred
through the ‘terms of use’ of a social network, and the mass
distribution of child porn(asterisk)gr(asterisk)phy by an artificial
intelligence integrated into a social network crosses all
boundaries," she said.
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AP writers Claudia Ciobanu in Warsaw, Lorne Cook in Brussels and
John Leicester in Paris contributed to this report.
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