By AFP
January 2, 2026
Grok parent xAI is being pressed for details about what it is doing to stop the artificial intelligence tool from being used to remove clothes from women or children in pictures - Copyright AFP Lionel BONAVENTURE
Elon Musk’s Grok on Friday said it was scrambling to fix flaws in the artificial intelligence tool after users claimed it turned pictures of children or women into erotic images.
“We’ve identified lapses in safeguards and are urgently fixing them,” Grok said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“CSAM (Child Sexual Abuse Material) is illegal and prohibited.”
Complaints of abuses began hitting X after an “edit image” button was rolled out on Grok in late December.
The button allows users to modify any image on the platform — with some users deciding to partially or completely remove clothing from women or children in pictures, according to complaints.
Grok maker xAI, run by Musk, replied to an AFP query with a terse, automated response that said: “the mainstream media lies.”
The Grok chatbot, however, did respond to an X user who queried it on the matter, after they said that a company in the United States could face criminal prosecution for knowingly facilitating or failing to prevent the creation or sharing of child porn.
Media outlets in India reported on Friday that government officials there are demanding X quickly provide them details of measures the company is taking to remove “obscene, nude, indecent, and sexually suggestive content” generated by Grok without the consent of those in such pictures.
The public prosecutor’s office in Paris meanwhile expanded an investigation into X to include new accusations that Grok was being used for generating and disseminating child pornography.
The initial investigation against X was opened in July following reports that the social network’s algorithm was being manipulated for the purpose of foreign interference.
Grok has been criticized in recent months for generating multiple controversial statements, from the war in Gaza and the India-Pakistan conflict to antisemitic remarks and spreading misinformation about a deadly shooting in Australia.
mng-clw-bl-gc/jgc
Elon Musk in hot water as probe launched into AI chatbot over explicit images of kids
Brad Reed,
Brad Reed,
Common Dreams
January 2, 2026
FILE PHOTO: Elon Musk is seen with a bruised eye that Musk claimed he received at the hands of his son, X Æ A-12, as he attends a press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 30, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo
Elon Musk is facing calls for legal ramifications after Grok, the AI chatbot used on his X social media platform, produced sexually suggestive images of children.
Politico reported on Friday that the Paris prosecutor’s office in France is opening an investigation into X after Grok, following prompts from users, created deepfake photographs of both adult women and underage girls that removed their clothes and replaced them with bikinis.
Politico added that the investigation into X over the images will “bolster” an ongoing investigation launched by French prosecutors last year into Grok’s dissemination of Holocaust denial propaganda.
France is not the only government putting pressure on Musk, as TechCrunch reported on Friday that India’s information technology ministry has given X 72 hours to restrict users’ ability to generate content deemed “obscene, pornographic, vulgar, indecent, sexually explicit, pedophilic, or otherwise prohibited under law.”
Failure to comply with this order, the ministry warned, could lead to the government ending X’s legal immunity from being sued over user-generated content.
In an interview with Indian cable news network CNBC TV18, cybersecurity expert Ritesh Bhatia argued that legal liability for the images generated by Grok should not just lie with the users whose prompts generated them, but with the creators of the chatbot itself.
“When a platform like Grok even allows such prompts to be executed, the responsibility squarely lies with the intermediary,” said Bhatia. “Technology is not neutral when it follows harmful commands. If a system can be instructed to violate dignity, the failure is not human behavior alone—it is design, governance, and ethical neglect. Creators of Grok need to take immediate action.”
Corey Rayburn Yung, a professor at the University of Kansas School of Law, argued on Bluesky that it was “unprecedented” for a digital platform to give “users a tool to actively create” child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
“There are no other instances of a major company affirmatively facilitating the production of child pornography,” Yung emphasized. “Treating this as the inevitable result of generative AI and social media is a harrowing mistake.”
Andy Craig, a fellow at the Institute for Humane Studies, said that US states should use their powers to investigate X over Grok’s generation of CSAM, given that it is unlikely the federal government under President Donald Trump will do so.
“Every state has its equivalent laws about this stuff,” Craig explained. “Musk is not cloaked in some federal immunity just because he’s off-again/on-again buddies with Trump.”
Grok first gained the ability to generate sexual content this past summer when Musk introduced a new “spicy mode” for the chatbot that was immediately used to generate deepfake nude photos of celebrities.
Weeks before this, Grok began calling itself “MechaHitler” after Musk ordered his team to make tweaks to the chatbot to make it more “politically incorrect.”
January 2, 2026
FILE PHOTO: Elon Musk is seen with a bruised eye that Musk claimed he received at the hands of his son, X Æ A-12, as he attends a press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 30, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard/File Photo
Elon Musk is facing calls for legal ramifications after Grok, the AI chatbot used on his X social media platform, produced sexually suggestive images of children.
Politico reported on Friday that the Paris prosecutor’s office in France is opening an investigation into X after Grok, following prompts from users, created deepfake photographs of both adult women and underage girls that removed their clothes and replaced them with bikinis.
Politico added that the investigation into X over the images will “bolster” an ongoing investigation launched by French prosecutors last year into Grok’s dissemination of Holocaust denial propaganda.
France is not the only government putting pressure on Musk, as TechCrunch reported on Friday that India’s information technology ministry has given X 72 hours to restrict users’ ability to generate content deemed “obscene, pornographic, vulgar, indecent, sexually explicit, pedophilic, or otherwise prohibited under law.”
Failure to comply with this order, the ministry warned, could lead to the government ending X’s legal immunity from being sued over user-generated content.
In an interview with Indian cable news network CNBC TV18, cybersecurity expert Ritesh Bhatia argued that legal liability for the images generated by Grok should not just lie with the users whose prompts generated them, but with the creators of the chatbot itself.
“When a platform like Grok even allows such prompts to be executed, the responsibility squarely lies with the intermediary,” said Bhatia. “Technology is not neutral when it follows harmful commands. If a system can be instructed to violate dignity, the failure is not human behavior alone—it is design, governance, and ethical neglect. Creators of Grok need to take immediate action.”
Corey Rayburn Yung, a professor at the University of Kansas School of Law, argued on Bluesky that it was “unprecedented” for a digital platform to give “users a tool to actively create” child sexual abuse material (CSAM).
“There are no other instances of a major company affirmatively facilitating the production of child pornography,” Yung emphasized. “Treating this as the inevitable result of generative AI and social media is a harrowing mistake.”
Andy Craig, a fellow at the Institute for Humane Studies, said that US states should use their powers to investigate X over Grok’s generation of CSAM, given that it is unlikely the federal government under President Donald Trump will do so.
“Every state has its equivalent laws about this stuff,” Craig explained. “Musk is not cloaked in some federal immunity just because he’s off-again/on-again buddies with Trump.”
Grok first gained the ability to generate sexual content this past summer when Musk introduced a new “spicy mode” for the chatbot that was immediately used to generate deepfake nude photos of celebrities.
Weeks before this, Grok began calling itself “MechaHitler” after Musk ordered his team to make tweaks to the chatbot to make it more “politically incorrect.”
No comments:
Post a Comment