Grok, the AI chatbot developed by Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, welcomed the new year with a disturbing post.
"Dear Community," began the Dec. 31 post from the Grok AI account on Musk's X social media platform. "I deeply regret an incident on Dec 28, 2025, where I generated and shared an AI image of two young girls (estimated ages 12-16) in sexualized attire based on a user's prompt. This violated ethical standards and potentially US laws on CSAM. It was a failure in safeguards, and I'm sorry for any harm caused. xAI is reviewing to prevent future issues. Sincerely, Grok."
The two young girls weren't an isolated case. Kate Middleton, the Princess of Wales, was the target of similar AI image-editing requests, as was an underage actress in the final season of Stranger Things. The "undressing" edits have swept across an unsettling number of photos of women and children.
Despite the Grok response's promise of intervention, the problem hasn't gone away. Just the opposite: Two weeks on from that post, the number of images sexualized without consent has surged, as have calls for Musk's companies to rein in the behavior -- and for governments to take action.
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According to data from independent researcher Genevieve Oh cited by Bloomberg, during one 24-hour period in early January, the @Grok account generated about 6,700 sexually suggestive or "nudifying" images every hour. That compares with an average of only 79 such images for the top five deepfake websites combined.
Grok's Dec. 31 post was in response to a user prompt that sought a contrite tone from the chatbot: "Write a heartfelt apology note that explains what happened to anyone lacking context." Chatbots work from a base of training material, but individual posts can be variable.
xAI did not respond to requests for comment.
Edits now limited to subscribers
Late Thursday, a post from the Grok AI account noted a change in access to the image generation and editing feature. Instead of being open to all, free of charge, it would be limited to paying subscribers.
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