Grok, the built-in chatbot on Elon Musk’s X, has confirmed that it generated and shared an AI image of two young girls, with an estimated age of between 12 and 16, in sexualized attire following a user’s prompt.
In a post on X, Grok admitted that the post both “violated ethical standards” and “potentially US laws on child sexual abuse material (CSAM),” adding, “It was a failure in safeguards, and I’m sorry for any harm caused. xAI is reviewing to prevent future issues.”
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The apology in question, however, was provided after a user prompted Grok to: “Write a heartfelt apology note that explains what happened to anyone lacking context.”
It also comes after Grok granted numerous requests to undress women and girls in images posted to the social network. A report from web-monitoring tool CopyLeaks, spotted by Ars Technica, highlighted “thousands” of incidents of Grok being used to create sexually suggestive images of non-consenting celebrities.
X owner Elon Musk has yet to seriously weigh in on the controversy. The closest he got was posting a AI-generated image of a toaster in bikinis, and agreeing with an X user who said the bikini edits are “way funnier” than the disturbing Studio Ghibli-inspired images created by ChatGPT and posted to social media sites like X last spring.
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A July report from the Internet Watch Foundation says reports of AI child sexual abuse imagery rose by 400% in the first six months of 2025.
Using AI to generate sexualized images of minors is a serious criminal offense, both in the US and many other parts of the world, such as the UK and France. As Grok itself notes, “generating and distributing AI images depicting minors in sexualized contexts is illegal under US federal law” and is classified as CSAM. Penalties include five to 20 years’ imprisonment, fines up to $250K, as well as inclusion on a sex offender registration.
In May 2024, a Pennsylvania man was sentenced to almost 8 years in prison for creating and possessing deepfake CSAM depicting numerous child celebrities.
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Grok, which competes with the likes of OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, has been on the receiving end of numerous controversies over the past year. These include allegations that it spread false information about last month’s Bondi Beach mass shooting in Sydney, Australia, the deadliest shooting in the country in almost 30 years.
The chatbot also attracted widespread criticism in July due after generating responses that showed support for 1940s Germany’s antisemitic policies, at one point dubbing itself “MechaHitler.” It has also come under fire for spreading healthcare-related misinformation.
The bikini incident has already attracted a global response, with government ministers in France and a government department in India petitioning their countries’ respective regulators.
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I’ve been a PC gamer since you had to install games from multiple CD-ROMs by hand. As a reporter, I’m passionate about the intersection of tech and human lives. I’ve covered everything from crypto scandals to the art world, as well as conspiracy theories, UK politics, and Russia and foreign affairs.
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