On Christmas Eve, Elon Musk announced that Grok, the artificial intelligence chatbot offered by his company xAI, would now include an image and a video editing feature. Unfortunately, numerous X users have since asked Grok to edit photos of real women and even children by stripping them down to bikinis (or worse) — and Grok often complies.
The resulting torrent of sexualized imagery is now under investigation by regulators worldwide for potential violations of laws against child sexual abuse material and nonconsensual sexual imagery. Indonesia and Malaysia have chosen to temporarily block access to Grok. Even if many of the generated images do not cross a legal line, they have still incited outrage. Though the chatbot began limiting some requests for A.I.-generated images to premium feature subscribers as of Thursday, Grok’s new feature remains available unchanged, in stark contrast to xAI’s swift intervention after Grok started referring to itself as “MechaHitler” last summer.
- Date Published:1.12.2026
- Original Publication: New York Times